WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 101213

A new report reveals that forest fires have an impact on the amount of sunlight hitting the ground, or solar irradiance, to use the technical term (1). With the first major Santa Ana wind event behind them, fire agencies notched up their readiness in Southern California mountain communities for the next (2); this at a time when folks in Laguna Beach commemorated the 20th anniversary of a 14,000-acre wildfire that destroyed 391 homes (3); while Ventura County firefighters doused a 3-4 acre blaze ignited when a car crashed into a power pole in Moorpark (4); but electricity was knocked out by a small wildfire in Watsonville on Friday that may have sparked from electric lines (5); while a 20-acre wildfire south of Oroville destroyed one home (6); and an article attributed to the Wall Street Journal examines the contentious issue of salvage logging in the Rim Fire burn area (7). Firefighters from the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, received awards for their efforts battling this summer's Black Forest Fire (8); but the CoreLogic report cited in articles this past week revealed that 2,823 Austin, Texas, properties worth $811.9 million are at risk from wildfires (9). Wildfire NOTD subscriber Dan Snyder, Chief Operating Officer at Montana-based Neptune Aviation, discussed their open house this weekend in the next article (10); and Wildfire NOTD subscriber Mikel Robinson, Executive Director of the International Association of Wildland Fire, announced that, for those who can't make it to their conference in Maryland, a Virtual International Smoke Symposium will allow them to attend vicariously (11). A small wildfire was quickly squelched in White Woods outside of Gainsborough, UK (12); but eight people died battling a wildfire in northwest China's Shaanxi Province (13). A bushfire arsonist was apparently at work outside of Laidley township in Queensland, Australia, where a score of bushfires cropped up (14). Bushfire warnings were up across New South Wales as heat, wind, and lightning arrived (15); an Op-Ed piece from the Sydney Morning Herald warning homeowners of possibly fatal consequences if they remain to fight bushfires at their homes (16); while an editorial from Western Australia blasted officials for studying bushfire management instead of implementing it (17). And finally, fire departments have traditionally favored Dalmatians as their firehouse dogs, but firefighters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have skewed that tradition slightly by adopting a Dalmatian chicken!

(1) Forest Fires, Extreme Weather Affect Solar Irradiance

(2) Firefighters contain brush fire after crash near Moorpark

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