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California
Hundreds of homes evacuated due to 'biggest fire in Los Angeles history'
The LA fire is one of several major fires burning in the western United States.
4.20pm, 3 Sep 2017
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A homeowner in Sun Valley waits for help from firefighting helicopters Paul Rodriguez / AP/Press Association Images
Paul Rodriguez / AP/Press Association Images / AP/Press Association Images
A MASSIVE FIRE described as the biggest in the history of Los Angeles has led to the evacuation of hundreds of homes.
Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters the blaze, which broke out Friday and lit up the hills surrounding the northern suburb of Burbank, has already burnt 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares), adding: “In terms of acres involved this is probably the largest fire in LA city history.”
The Los Angeles fire is one of several major fires burning in the western United States.
The federal government has declared states of emergencies in Montana and Washington state, where thousands of people have been evacuated. Such emergencies are declared to release and mobilise federal resources to help fight the fires.
In Los Angeles, Garcetti has declared a local state of emergency and he appealed to California Governor Jerry Brown to do the same at state level.
The Los Angeles blaze has so far destroyed three structures, including two houses, and forced the evacuation of nearly 700 homes in various parts of the city and neighbouring Glendale, firefighters said.
Flames are visible in the hills in several neighborhoods including Burbank, where the Disney and Warner Bros studios are located.
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More than 500 firefighters were mobilised, and 100 others who had been deployed in Houston, Texas to help rescue operations after Hurricane Harvey were asked to return.
The fire, which is only 10% controlled, broke out on the US Labour Day long weekend and as the western part of the country was facing a heatwave.
Yosemite
Some access roads to the famed Yosemite National Park have been closed due to fire, as have hiking trails.
“Expect poor air quality and limited visibility due to fires in Yosemite,” the park said on its website.
Authorities said wind was their main concern because it could whip up the flames and allow it to spread quickly in unpredictable directions.
Further north in Washington state, more than 4,000 homes have been evacuated because of the dangers posed by a number of fires covering 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares).
High temperatures are forecast for the state over the next week, which could complicate firefighting efforts.
Massive forest fires also prompted evacuations in neighbouring Oregon. In Montana, more than 20 fires are burning as near record high temperatures, wind and below normal rainfall have created a tinder box.
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And of course, though less talked about, there has been an even worse flooding catastrophe across the whole of South Asia. Across India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, record amounts of heavy monsoon rains have caused disastrous flooding and landslides. Thousands of homes have become completely submerged, poor villages have absolutely no access to food and medicine, and nearly 1200 people have died – including children. Millions have been displaced, and are now wandering the region homeless and searching for help.
This year wildfires have ravaged places, such as Greenland, that have no history of wildfires. The whole thing is going seriously belly up.
@Little Diddy No: it is the poorest and most vulnerable human beings on the planet, who have contributed nothing or the least to global warming, who are the first to pay with their lives for man generated global warming.
It’s ironic that a country that is suffering so much from the effects of more extreme weather events and catastrophes because of climate change has a government that denies the evidence and won’t take part in taking the necessary urgent action needed to reduce our CO2 emissions.
This is just the beginning – unprecedented drought, wildfires, floods across the whole world, including Ireland, and it’s going to get worse.
Is the hurricane season a new thing in the gulf reason and as a result of climate change. There was me thinking that it was happening every year. And hot summer weather causing forest fires in California, wow, I thought these happened every year too.
@Nick Allen: You are correct that global warming has not increased the number of hurricanes, but it has increased their severity. There is no question about this in the scientific community. It is the most basic science that hurricanes gather strength from warm air and water. As the air and oceans warm (and this is well documented), it creates more evaporation of water – warmer air holds much more moisture that it can then dump as rain.
The science says that warmer global temperatures make storms more intense and makes them make more water – in terms of Harvey, this is calculated to be 30% more rain from warmer air and waters in the region where the storm gathered its strength.
Similar (only much worse) unprecedented monsoon flooding is currently taking place right now across South Asia, with even greater loss of life and displacement of many millions of people.
As regards drought, the drought in California is unprecedented. Wildfire season is absolutely now documented to start earlier, be more severe and last longer in a number of countries, such as the US and Australia.
These things are not a surprise. Hotter temperatures and drought make plant materials like a tinderbox.
In Russia a few years back, huge swathes of cropland burned over thousands of acres. That is the kind of thing we have to look forward to with increasing global temperatures.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: A very high percentage – the work goes across all the different scientific disciplines – eg oceanics, atmospherics, solar experts, paleo, geology, astronomy, physics, quarternary, agronomy, biologists, botanists, etc.
I’ll find the latest list of all the world experts on all the different areas of science who worked on the huge project that is the IPPC periodical reports and post it.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: Here’s a list of contributing editors from one of the IPCC reports – they are experts across a range of difference scientific disciplines, as is right for such a complex subject that affects so many earth systems: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/ar5_authors_review_editors_updated.pdf
Its not climate change that impacts flooding or the extent of forest fires, its how infrastructure is planned and implemented. The lack of flood relief, property development, the cutting down of trees and removal of natural resources is the problem and NOT climate. Maybe do a little research before ranting on the journal
More evidence of “weather extremes” as each side of the US are polar opposite of echother for record breaking weather events. Their support services are working hard saving lives. Hopefully there is money left in the bank for their overtime and people who are covered by the health/home insurers will be taken care of ………….
@John O’Shea: The difference is that scientists from all the different branches of science – not just climatologists – agree that the exponential increase in extreme catastrophic weather events (such as huge raging wildfires or torrential storms and flooding) is caused by human-induced global warming. There is no doubt about this in the scientific community.
The problem is that this is just the beginning – our current climate change is the result of our emissions of 40-50 years ago – there is a time lag between emissions and their full effect in the atmosphere – that is very worrying given the disruption we are already seeing.
I agree that solar experts tell us that solar activity has been on a cooling trend for some time (only accounts though for about 0.1% of cooling effect) – which makes it all the more alarming that the planet has been heating up at such an exponential rate in spite of this.
This is much more dangerous than an ice age – they come on a cycle of every 100,000 years but the cooling and warming over that period is very slow – unlike the current dramatic warming (in a global context – remember there is only about 5 degrees GLOBAL temperature difference between now and the last ice age) – giving plants and animals time to adapt and evolve. Our current warming is NOT giving plants and animals time to adapt and is causing absolute havoc.
It will be the death of us unless we act with urgency to stop our emission.
@epo eire: this area of California has been prone to wild fires time immemorial, its the way nature regenerates the ecosystem, the fact is houses shouldn’t have been built there.
@Liam Doyle: That’s right, they are all involved in the IPCC process – not just climatologists. You need them all working together to understand what the likely effects will be if we continue on our current trajectory. Botanists are necessary to study and report on the effects of changes in plant distribution, how crops will react to more heat and more CO2, the fact that pollinators and the crops they pollinate are now starting to emerge at different times, because of climate change. Paleobotanists working with paleoclimatologists can look at the evidence from the past (eg in ice cores, petrified trees, etc) to see what happened to plants under different CO2 concentrations, or at different times of climate change. Biologists are also very important. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/ar5_authors_review_editors_updated.pdf
Here are the statements on climate change from all the most reputable national and international bodies representing all the different sciences around the world. http://scienceblogs.com/significantfigures/index.php/2017/01/07/statements-on-climate-change-from-major-scientific-academies-societies-and-associations-january-2017-update/
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: I agree that we probably live as humans in places not suitable for human habitation, unless you are an indigenous population that is prepared to work with the terrain and climate!
However, the prolonged drought of so many years in California is beyond normal and temperatures there recently have broken all records. The situation is completely unprecedented. In Syria, before the war, they had six years of unprecedented drought that displace many people from their land. No coincidence that conflict ensued.
@Little Diddy No: if global warming continues at the current rate of increase, what were 1 in 100 years events will increase in frequency and severity will be exacerbated. Moe heat in the atmosphere and in the heat sinks of the oceans introduce more energy and volatility into a highly complex climate system.
@Fiona deFreyne: Thanks Fiona! Of course devastating storms, floods, drought and wildfires not only affect people’s lives and create climate refugees – they destroy lots of animals and insects and plants and crops and ecosystems – affecting our very life support systems.
@Little Diddy No: ecosystems are devastated and humans at the top of the chain are at the risk of famine, disease, drought and conflict over scarcer resources. There is no good news in this.
At least we know what is happening and why it is happening.
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