Europeans on alert as heatwave intensifies

27 June 2019

BERLIN — Authorities raised alerts on Wednesday as Europe’s record-breaking June heatwave threatened to intensify with temperatures heading into the 40s Celsius.

The choking heat has prompted traffic restrictions, sparked forest fires and fanned debate over public nudity as sweltering Germans stripped off.

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TNI Joins Efforts to Halt Forest Fires in South Sumatra

Editor: WAH, 27 Juni 2019

Jakarta: The Indonesian military will join efforts to halt recurrences of land and forest fires in South Sumatra Province during this year’s dry season by regularly conducting public awareness campaigns in several districts.

The campaigns regarding the importance of taking precautionary measures have been conducted in districts such as Banyuasin and Ogan Komering Ilir, Chief of the 044/Garuda Dempo Military Resort Command, Major Binsar J Simanjuntak, said on Wednesday.

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Central region continues to suffer summer heat

23 June 2019

 

HÀ NỘI — Scorching heat is expected to continue in the central region for the next few days after hitting northern and central localities over the weekend.

Temperatures yesterday peaked at 39 degrees Celsius in the north and 41 degrees Celsius the central region, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

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Meeting: Up – Scaling Community Resilience Through Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (ECO-DRR) Jakarta, 20-21 June 2019

Eco-DRR workshop program that is carried out by Yayasan Lahan Basah (Wetlands International Iindonesia ) and UN Environment invited a couple of government institutions, publicly-listed plantation company association, and association of companies forestry, NGO, education authorities, (more…)

Wildfire forecaster sees late start for Idaho forest fires

By Keith Ridler Associated Press | 18

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – A federal wildfire forecaster says Idaho’s wet spring and below-average temperatures the last three months will likely mean a later start to forest fires, but rangeland fires could be a problem as grasses dry out.

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Drones for early detection of forest fires

by Carlos III University of Madrid | 17 June 2019

The UC3M’s researchers coordinating the scientific part of the project, Fernando García y Abdulla al-Kaff, from the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, have developed the complete automatic flight system, as well as the interface with which the emergency service can access information about what is occurring in real time. (more…)

‘Can’t be any more clear’: Scientist says fires in Alberta linked to climate change

By: Colette Derworiz, The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, June 9, 2019

 

EDMONTON — In May 2016, a wildfire near Fort McMurray forced more than 80,000 people to flee the northern Alberta city, destroyed 2,400 buildings and burned nearly 6,000 square kilometres of forest.

A year later, the fire season in British Columbia broke records as 2,117 blazes consumed more than 12,000 square kilometres of bush.

Both have been connected to climate change in two separate research papers published earlier this year by scientists with Environment and Climate Change Canada. (more…)

Study: US West forest fires release less carbon than thought

 

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from forest fires in the U.S. West is being greatly overestimated, possibly leading to poor land management decisions, researchers at the University of Idaho said.

Researchers in the study published last week in the journal Global Change Biology say many estimates are 59% to 83% higher than what is found based on field observations.

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Worst Forest Fires in Decades Continue to Gut Green Wealth, But Govt Has No Plan of Action

Hridayesh Joshi | 3 June 2019

 

While the government seems to have no effective disaster management plan in place to control such forest fires in the Himalayas (or elsewhere in the country) occurring every year, the total loss of forest wealth has gone beyond 2,000 hectares.

Ranikhet, Almora: As a raging fire continued to destroy precious wealth in the forests of Uttarakhand, scientists have warned that this may be among the worst infernos we have seen in nearly two decades.

While replying to a comment on the blaze, Mark Parrington, senior scientist working with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), wrote on Twitter, “Looking at the May monthly total fire radiative power, 2019 is second worst in 16 years after 2012.”

Parrington explained that radiative power is the quantity related to the intensity of the active fire which scientists use to estimate emissions of pollutants.

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