WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 111110

As San Diego Gas & Electric continues to pressure the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to endorse its controversial Wildfire Expense Balancing Account, CPUC is trying to get a better feel for the causes of wildfires in California (1). Firefighters in Holland, Michigan, fear that they have a serial arsonist on their hands after battling 30 grass fires in the past few days (2); while a wildfire was reported in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest, one of 50 to have broken out in the past three weeks (3). As US Forest Service police officers continue to investigate the cause of a wildfire in Illinois' Shawnee National Forest, firefighters have reached 100% containment of the blaze (4); and Alabama is well into its fall fire season, as the next article shows (5). A 578-acre wildfire which has been burning in Virginia's George Washington National Forest continues to smolder even after rain dampened the area (6); while a wildfire in Banner Elk, North Carolina, briefly threatened homes yesterday (7). Bulgaria continues to burn, as high winds coupled with unseasonably warm temperatures have spawned 264 fires across the country, 30 of them within the last 12 hours (8); where a Professor of Labour Safety and Fire Safety at Sofia's Forest University claims that a large percentage of the wildfires are caused by agricultural burns that get out of control (9). As the final payouts from the $391 million raised for Australia's Black Saturday bushfire relief are made, the next article takes a look at how the money was distributed (10); but a representative of Country Fire Authority speaking at the Fire Australia conference on the Gold Coast lamented homeowner complacency in regards to bushfires in Victoria (11). And finally, art imitates life as a novelist in San Diego, California, used the devastating 2007 wildfires as background material for her latest novel!

(1) CPUC's Consumer Protection and Safety Division In Need Of Wildfire Cause Data

(2) Fire chief calls string of grass fires suspicious

(3) Forest fire in Wayne County makes the number close to 50

(4) Shawnee Forest Fire contained, not yet "controlled"

(5) Caution urged as state's fall fire season heats up

(6) Forest Fire Still Smoldering, Despite Rain

(7) Foscoe brush fires threaten several houses

(8) More than 200 wildfires raging in Bulgaria

(9) Prof. Kiril Lyubenov: Every third wildfire is the result of burning of stubble field and pasture

(10) Bushfire survivors get all of appeal funding

(11) Fire authorities battle bushfire complacency

(12) Local author uses 2007 wildfires as backdrop for new novel