El Ni?o is not a game

Wildfire risk maps, normally wet Colombia is on fire, insurance, agriculture, space lasers and other Fire News, Now ??

If you just read one thing:

Scientific American discusses wildfire risk maps, and importantly, a trend nationwide to provide secure funding for consistent updates. Forestry and fire officials in states such as Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Texas are stepping up their efforts to ensure they have high-quality fire risk data, models and maps to more accurately determine at a more granular level which areas are most at risk — and where they should focus mitigation efforts.

“There is a slowly growing push amongst different states to do this. Why? Because the climate is changing, the fire environment is changing,” said Joe Scott, founder of Pyrologix, a wildfire risk assessment and modeling firm.

This week's Fire News

• ?? Fire, Generally : Insurance, and agriculture
• ?? Climate : The Country is not Ready
• ?? Firefighting : Appreciating the truck, PFAs, 2023 incident report and young firefolk
• ?? Firetech : Space Lasers
• ?? What’s burning? : Colombia, Australia, South Africa

I’m keeping it quick today, as I wrap up a handful of other projects that we’ll be sharing in the next few weeks for Rain. It’s really exciting to be preparing some fresh images and stories from our recent fieldwork!

Fire, Generally

Insurance, and agriculture

• Home insurance in CA is still a problem
• In Oregon a jury awarded $85 million to the victims of a 2020 wildfire, to be paid by the public utility PacificCorp
• In Hawai'i insurers are suing utilities and landowners for negligence in the Maui disaster, and on the mainland USA, crops are at risk from lingering effects of Canada’s wildfires
• Estimates for agricultural losses due to the wildfires in Hawai’i surpass $20 million

Climate

The Country Was Not Ready

• Normally-wet Colombia has declared a set of wildfires a natural disaster and is pleading for international support. They’re fighting the fires with 600 firefighters, a quarter of them volunteers, and some donated Black Hawks from the US government. Given that the climate is making weather unpredictable and drying out normally-wet areas, places like this will be more likely to burn—and without the fire infrastructure or trained personnel to handle it. It’s estimated that 95% of the fires have been ignited by humans either through negligence or malintent, and the government is conducting a campaign urging people to report fires with the hashtag #elNi?oNoEsUnJuego (el Ni?o is not a game).?

“Colombia’s fires this month are unusual in a country where people are more accustomed to torrential rain and mudslides than fire and ash. They have been attributed to high temperatures and drought exacerbated by the climate phenomenon known as El Ni?o.”?

Firefighting

Appreciating the truck, PFAs, 2023 incident report and young firefolk

• Municipalities often celebrate their new fire equipment acquisitions, and I confess to love a good firetruck picture so here’s a new truck in New South Wales
• Ohio is figuring out what to do with toxic PFAs fire suppressant foam
• It’s a quiet time for wildland firefighters, nice time to take a moment with The Hotshot Wakeup to see what he’s covering (prescribed burns, drones, and notes on the 2023 incident report from the Feds)
• Two great stories on young firefighters—this one highlighting a 16 year old volunteer who’s been going out on calls since she was a baby, and this one on how to bridge generational gaps within fire departments

Firetech

Space Lasers

• Kind of a fun, splashy title: Scientists are using a space laser to make predictions about wildfire severity (aka they’re using lidar, which we’ve talked about a little here, but this is a nice story with approachable technical detail)

What’s burning?

Normally wet, Colombia is on fire

• You can read more on Colombia from Reuters or even more briefly: Axios
• Australia (evacuations)
• South Africa (evacuations)

Thank you for reading, and staying abreast of the fire news with us. If you’ve appreciated this news aggregation be sure to like, comment, subscribe, forward to a friend and all that!