Posts Tagged ‘wildfires’
Firefighters struggle with major blazes in Western U.S. states — Congress fiddles!
Firefighters in Western U.S. states struggled to contain out-of-control wind-stoked wildfires on Saturday as summer temperatures mounted, and a fresh blaze consumed more homes in Colorado even as Utah allowed 2,500 evacuees back for the night.
Colorado firefighters remained unable to halt the spread of the High Park Fire, a growing 81,190-acre blaze in steep canyons west of Fort Collins. The fire jumped containment lines on Friday and roared through a subdivision, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents…
As firefighters focused on that monster blaze, a fire that erupted 18 miles away in a cabin near the Rocky Mountain National Park ripped through 21 vacation dwellings and full-time residences in Estes Park, the area’s fire chief said…
In Denver, a dense canopy of gray smoke could be seen drifting east from the fire zone over Colorado’s high plains, at times blocking the view of the mountains, and the smell of burning timber wafted through the city.
The High Park fire is blamed for the death of a 62-year-old grandmother who perished in her mountain cabin. It is already the state’s most destructive and the second-largest on record in Colorado.
As of Friday, there were 15 large, uncontained wildfires being fought across the country, most in six Western states – Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona – the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported…
The biggest by far was the Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire in New Mexico, that state’s largest on record, which has charred almost 300,000 acres. That blaze is nearly 90 percent contained.
Suspected arsonists sought as wildfires rage in Texas
Dropping water one bucket at a time
One of the dozens of massive blazes that have torched rain-starved Texas was set by arsonists, police say.
Cops in Leander are hunting for two teenage girls and two teenage boys suspected of starting a fire Monday night that gutted around a dozen houses and forced hundreds of people to evacuated their homes…
The teens were spotted running through a wooded area where the fire started, police said. The city was offering up to $2,000 to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the arsonists.
Local reports said the blaze ripped through at least 300 acres, destroyed 11 homes and damaged at least eight homes around Leander, about 22 miles northwest of Austin…
Investigators say one of girl suspects was wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans, and she had black hair that may have been dyed. The other girl was described as having dirty blond hair in a white T-shirt and jeans. Both boys had dark, shaggy hair and were dressed in jeans, police said. All four teens are white, cops said.
More than 150 different wildfires have ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Texas this week.
One fire, in Bastrop, southeast of Austin, was described as the most devastating wildfire in more than a decade. That fire raged for a fourth-consecutive day on Wednesday, consuming 45 square miles and forcing 7,000 to evacuate the area. More than 600 homes were said to have been destroyed, and four people have been killed.
Murder is murder is murder. If they catch these kids and they are proven to have started fires – throw away the key.
In a related story – a DC10 air tanker ain’t flying and dropping water on fires because the state of Texas in their infinite wisdom [which means Rick Perry] was too cheap to hire a backup pilot. The only one they hired has exceeded maximum consecutive hours for a pilot to be allowed to fly.
Yes, there are safety reasons for that – the maximum flying hours, not the cheapskate part.
Texas idiot governor calls for prayers to halt wildfires
Mr. Mouth calling for state sovereignty
Texas Governor Rick Perry called on Texans to pray for rain as cooler temperatures on Thursday helped firefighters contain wildfires that have charred more than 1.5 million acres across the state.
Perry, a Republican, sought increased federal help in combating the blazes last weekend and urged Texans to ask the same from a higher power over the Easter holiday weekend.
This is the same buffoon who endorses secession and states’ rights when his butt isn’t burning.
“Throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer,” Perry said in a statement. “It is fitting that Texans should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this ongoing drought and these devastating wildfires.”
A wave of moisture and cooler weather had already helped the roughly 1,800 firefighters and support crews contain nine fires and make headway against many more by Thursday morning. Mother Nature generally accomplishes more than ideology.
But conditions fueling the fast-moving wildfires that killed two volunteer firefighters and destroyed 200 homes this month would not ease for good, officials warned.
This silly-ass Kool Aid Party Republikan whines most of the year about Big Government. Except when he needs a hand-up or a hand-out.
Like most of the hustlers who currently own the Republican Party he’s a national-class hypocrite. That he calls upon his dimwit followers to exercise their fundamentalist superstitions to assuage the natural results of administrative incompetence – follows as night the day.
Marysville fire survivors return home – to what remains
Daylife/Getty Images
Six weeks after fires devastated parts of southern Australia, residents of one of the worst-affected towns have finally been allowed to go
home.
Marysville was almost completely destroyed by bushfires on 7 February. It has been sealed off ever since by the police, who have been searching for the remains of victims and investigating suspicions of arson.
Forty-five people died when fires tore through Marysville, north-east of the Victorian state capital, Melbourne. The destruction of the picturesque town became a symbol of the bushfire disaster, the worst in Australia’s recent history…
Victoria’s Deputy Police Commissioner Kieran Walshe says the forensic work in Marysville is over.
“It’s in excess of 4,000 buildings and structures that we’ve searched in the last couple of weeks, so it’s been a massive exercise to get that done,” he said. “We’re comfortable now that we’ve located and recovered all human remains,” he added.
Now, folks must begin that terrible long journey back to normalcy. I’m afraid that for some, that’s never going to come.
You can sit around and make up existential one-liners every day. Losing everything you possess means losing a lot of memories, a great deal of the history of your life.
LA fires out of control – reduce hundreds of homes to ash
Over 500 homes destroyed in Oakridge mobile home community
Daylife/Reuters Pictures
Southern Californians endured a third day of destruction Saturday as wind-blasted wildfires torched hundreds of mobile homes and mansions, forced tens of thousands of people to flee and shut down major freeways.
No deaths were reported, but the Los Angeles police chief said he feared authorities might find bodies among the 500 burned dwellings in a devastated mobile home park that housed many senior citizens.
“We have almost total devastation here in the mobile park,” Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said. “I can’t even read the street names because the street signs are melting.”
The series of fires has injured at least 20 people and destroyed hundreds of homes from coastal Santa Barbara to inland Riverside County, on the other side of the Los Angeles area. Smoke blanketed the nation’s second-largest city Saturday, reducing the afternoon sun to a pale orange disk.
As night fell, a fire fed by a sleet of blowing embers hopscotched through the winding lanes of modern subdivisions in Orange and Riverside counties, destroying more than 50 homes, some of them apparently mansions.
There is no end in sight as I’m posting this. When you get up in the morning, check online and on TV to see where it’s at!
UPDATE: 30,000 people evacuated, now.
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