WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 111610

Colorado's Senator Mark Udall has asked the federal government to step in and help with the bark beetle infestation ravaging forests across that state (1); the following article putting some numbers behind the rhetoric: 3.6 million acres of beetle-killed trees across Colorado and Wyoming! (2) Texas Forest Service reported eight wildfires in Ward County yesterday (3); while the Virginia Department of Forestry is struggling to contain two wildfires that have burned a total of 500 acres in difficult terrain (4). In a followup to an article from South Carolina yesterday, the driver of a vehicle that killed one firefighter and severely injured another while they were fighting a wildfire by a highway may turn out to be an illegal alien driving without a US license (5); but health officials in Clinch County, Georgia, warned residents with respiratory problems to stay indoors due to smoke from a nearby wildfire (6); while the next article profiles the US Army's Hawaii-based firefighters who have battled 436 wildfires on the island of Oahu so far this year (7). A British Columbia community that was threatened by 2009's Terrace Mountain Fire is taking steps to mitigate a repeat of that near-disaster (8); while the Merritt Fire Rescue Department has renewed an agreement with B.C. Forestry to keep a wildfire engine housed in their town (9). Wildfires have been reported by two communities in Israel's Western Galilee district (10); and the thorny issue of the traditional practices of the Kalimantan tribesmen on Indonesia's island of Borneo, which include setting agricultural fires which, all too often, become wildfires, is examined in the next article (11). Firefighters from New Zealand's Dipton Volunteer Fire Brigade protested Southern Rural Fire Authority driving off with their 4-wheel-drive brush truck yesterday, leaving them short-handed in dealing with bushfires that crop up in thousands of acres of timber plantations in the area (12). Although $50 million has been pledged to help reduce the threat from powerline-sparked bushfires in Victoria, Australia, it falls far short of the billions needed to properly insulate or bury the wires (13); while a Country Fire Authority firefighter who lost his home in the Black Saturday bushfires, which he helped fight, reflects on his life living in a shed two years after the blazes changed his life (14). Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation has warned residents of Collie about a nearby bushfire (15). And finally, some teenagers in Ohio got a little over-zealous in burning adult magazines, sparking a 3-acre blaze in the process!

(1) Udall Asks For Assessment Of Impact Of Bark Beetle Epidemic On Forest Safety

(2) Rocky Mountain Forest Die-Off

(3) Brush Fires Spread Through Ward County

(4) Two Wildfires Continue to Burn

(5) Unlicensed driver charged in accident that killed firefighter

(6) Smoke from Clinch Co. wildfire could keep some indoors

(7) Army's wildland firefighters fill niche on island

(8) Saving homes from potential fire

(9) City renews forest fire engine agreement

(10) Forest Fire near Neve Ziv

(11) Forest project threatens Indonesian tribes

(12) Firefighters vent anger as 4WD taken

(13) Ted Baillieu's fire backflip

(14) Two years on, CFA volunteer sleeping in shed

(15) Residents warned on fire near Collie

(16) Teens burning adult magazines suspected in three-acre woods fire