The fire has scorched more than 606 square miles – an area larger than Los Angeles and about half the size of Rhode Island. Other solutions identified by communities out West are early warning systems coupled with remote sensing technologies, defensible space landscape design for homes and communities, and prescribed burns that can help clear out dead trees and accumulated biomass before they become a dangerous source of fuel for fires.As hot, dry weather conditions continue to fuel wildfires across much of the United States, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon has become so intense that it’s creating its own weather. This can reduce the risk of human-caused sparks and also prevent property and lives from being destroyed by fires that spread increasingly rapidly through these vulnerable areas. Forest Service describes as places where “humans and their development meet or intermix with wildland fuel.” State and local governments can discourage development in fire-prone areas. Many communities in western states are at high-risk of wildfires because they were developed in the wildland-urban interface, which the U.S. Planners with Cal Fire see wildfires primarily as a land-use problem. The organization states: “climate change causes forest fuels (the organic matter that burns and spreads wildfire) to be more dry and has doubled the number of large fires between 19 in the western U.S.” In a useful primer, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions outlines the many connections between climate change and wildfires. Studies have shown that after five days of major wildfires, the number of hospital visits for asthma attacks increased by 400 percent, and the number of visits for strokes by 42 percent.įor those out West, please take every precaution by closing windows and doors, running air purifiers, and regularly checking the latest evacuation orders. Blazes that consume homes and garages filled with household cleaners like Drano release other dangerous particles into the atmosphere.Īccording to researchers at Stanford University, the risks of toxic wildfire smoke are especially high for children, the elderly, and those with asthma. There are currently 100 large active fires across the West.īeyond the incredible loss of life and property, breathing in wildfire smoke can cause serious health issues. And in Washington state, an unprecedented 480,000 acres have burned just in one week. In Oregon, 900,000 acres have caught fire, causing half a million people to evacuate, which is more than 10 percent of the state’s population. According to The New York Times, that is 20 times more than what was burned last year and a modern record. In California alone, more than than 2.5 million acres have gone up in flames. more than 5 million acres have burned during this year’s fire season, which runs from May through September. The National Interagency Fire Center finds that in the western U.S. The Oregon Department of Forestry is following large active fires, as is the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Washington State. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) is tracking containment efforts for all wildfires and providing updates on evacuation orders. Western states offer maps with near real-time data as well. (ESRI also has a map with local disaster response data). ESRI adds that when zoomed-in, users can see additional fire data from NOAA/NASA satellites, which detect the locations of recent “thermal activity” that indicates fire direction. Smoke forecasts are incorporated from the National Weather Service and show 48-hour forecasts updated every hour. Smoke forecast / ESRIĪccording to ESRI, the sources of fire data in the map are the Integrated Reporting of Wildland-Fire Information (IRWIN) and the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) - both of which are updated every 15 minutes. Another layer provides a smoke forecast for any given location. The map indicates each fire’s estimated start date and its current level of containment. And human activity in the wildland-urban interface keeps creating new sparks: downed electrical lines have set many blazes, while, infamously, a gender reveal party with a “pyrotechnic device” created a massive conflagration.Īmid the continuing devastation, an interactive map from ESRI, which creates geographic information system software, enables users to track active fires by name or location in near real time and sort by timeline and magnitude. Heat waves over the summer dried out much of Western forests, which were already impacted by years of drought and bark beetles. According to experts, there are a number of reasons: climate change is creating the underlying conditions for more extreme weather events. California, Oregon, and Washington, along with nine other states in the West are now experiencing record-breaking wildfires.
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