Wildfire Today

‘Extreme’ wildfire warning issued for Scotland as nation braces for peak fire season

Hunter BasslerMarch 19, 2025Safety, ScotlandLeave a comment

Most of Scotland’s rural communities are under multiple wildfire warnings through Friday as authorities brace for the region’s “most critical period for wildfires.”

An “extreme” wildfire warning will go into effect on Friday for the nation’s low-lying areas, according to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Until then, all of Scotland’s rural environments will be under a “very high” wildfire warning through Friday.

Once fires ignite in Scotland, they have the potential to burn for days, the service said.

“We are asking the public to exercise extreme caution and think twice before using anything involving a naked flame,” said Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Group Commander Murray Dalgleish. “Livestock, farmland, wildlife, protected woodland and sites of special scientific interest can all be devastated by these fires – as can the lives of people living and working in rural communities.”

Credit: Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

Nearly 80% of Scotland’s large outdoor fires since 2010 have burned between March and May, an average of 170 wildfires annually. Prolonged wet weather in 2024 significantly dropped that year’s total to 55, but has fueled the growth of new vegetation across the nation.

In 2023, Scotland and the United Kingdom experienced their worst wildfire in recorded history. The Cannich Fire burned 30 sq miles of woodland in the Scottish Highlands and over half of the Corrimony nature reserve. Before that, the largest fire to burn in the UK was a wildfire in the peatland of Sutherland’s Flow Country in 2019.

The Fire Brigaders Union, which supports firefighters in the UK, said the Cannich Fire was directly connected to the world’s ongoing climate crisis.

“July last year saw the temperature in parts of the UK exceed 40 degrees centigrade for the first time in recorded history, increasing the risk of wildfires,” the union said in 2023. “All governments must heed this stark warning: the climate crisis is here now. We need urgent climate action to prevent loss of life, and that must also involve serious investment in our fire services.”

Around two-thirds of Scotland’s wildfires are accidental, with the most common cause being discarded cigarettes or unattended campfires, the service said.

“To address these risks, SFRS is advancing its Wildfire Strategy, and have invested £1.6 million in specialist equipment and firefighter training to improve its response capabilities,” the service said on its website. “It is crucial that people understand the impact of careless fire-setting. Even with the best intentions, small fires can rapidly spread causing devastating damage.”

New PBS doco takes us inside the LA firestorm

David BruceMarch 19, 2025March 19, 2025California, Fire behavior, Prevention, ResearchLeave a comment

On January 8 this year a film crew was on the ground in the LA firestorm capturing footage that is, in the aftermath of the tragedy, helping to explain the fire behavior and sheer destruction of the event.

Their work is now ready for viewing as an hour documentary on PBS. The program has interviews with fire officials who were there on the day, scientists, residents, and a volunteer fire brigade, who discuss the challenges of urban firestorms and the need to better protect communities.

Weathered- Inside the LA Firestorm is out of filmmaker Trip Jennings and Balance Media, who produced Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire two years ago.

Camera operator, Josh Finbow films the aftermath of the Eaton Fire from a fire helicopter, Altadena, CA. Photo: Connor Nelson

Watch the television premiere of Weathered- Inside the LA Firestorm on Wednesday, March 19 and online thereafter:

Television broadcast PBS Member Stations – 10PM Pacific and Eastern/9PM Central, online at that link from 5.30pm Pacific.
PBS Terra YouTube – Join director Trip Jennings, PBS host Maiya May and crew for a live chat at 5:30 PM Pacific Time

PBS host Maiya May surveys the destruction of a home in the Eaton Fire, Altadena, CA. Photo: Josh Finbow

Produced as a special edition of PBS Weathered, host Maiya May explains a play-by-play of the fires with first-person footage, cinematic fire footage, and animations created in collaboration with NASA.

The show will be available after the premiere at the link above so please share with anyone you believe would be interested in this program.

But please note – for those outside of the United States access to PBS may be denied, but the YouTube links should work everywhere.

Connor Nelson, while filming the Palisades Fire. Photo: Josh Finbow

Remains identified as missing firefighter from 2020 fire

David BruceMarch 17, 2025California, Hotshot history, Wildland Firefighter2 Comments

Remains found late last year in the San Bernardino Mountains in California have been positively identified as Carlos Baltazar, a US Forest Service firefighter who went missing during the El Dorado Fire in 2020, county officials have confirmed.

An investigation began in October last year when a hunter discovered a human remains in a remote part of the mountains near Highway 18.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department confirmed that the identification of Baltazar, a 39-year-old from La Puente, was made using DNA. The cause of death remained undetermined.

As reported by Wildfire Today at the time, Baltazar was a member of the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Crew in September 2020 that fought the El Dorado Fire, sparked after a gender reveal party gone wrong. Charles Morton, serving as the squad boss for the crew, died in the fire, and Baltazar’s family told local media that Baltazar had seemed depressed in the days after Morton’s death and went missing the week after.

The deadly El Dorado Fire scorched nearly 23,000 acres after erupting in September 2020.

A California couple pleaded guilty after accepting a plea deal to take responsibility for the blaze that was sparked by the gender reveal. The male pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure, while the female pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors. He was sentenced to one year in a county jail, two years felony probation and 200 hours of community service. In addition, the family was ordered to pay victims’ restitution of $1,789,972.

‘Significant’ spring wildfire risk in southeast US, driven by hurricane damage and drought

Hunter BasslerMarch 16, 2025Drought, Florida, Georgia, NIFC, North Carolina, South Carolina, United States1 Comment

A spike in wildfire activity throughout the United States has kicked off an early fire season, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

An estimated 9,520 wildfires have burned 269,986 acres across the nation as of March 14, the NIFC said. The year’s ongoing fire total is above the 10-year average of 6,629 wildfires, but below the 10-year average burned acreage of 431,052.

Over the past decade, the only years that have had more wildfires as of March 14 were 2022 with 12,088 wildfires, and 2017 with 10,328 wildfires.

The trend doesn’t look to be slowing down in the coming months. Numerous states will have significant wildland fire potential between March and June, according to the center’s outlook.

Large portions of multiple southeast states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, have heightened wildfire potential for all four months, driven in part by past hurricane damage.

“The most notable concerns will be from Hurricane Helene’s impacts across northeast Florida into southern and eastern Georgia, western South Carolina, the North Carolina mountains, and adjacent southwest Virginia into northeast Tennessee,” NIFC said. “Areas from the Florida Big Bend into southern Georgia also saw hurricane damage from Hurricanes Idalia in 2023 and Debby last year. Debris burning, access issues in the mountains, excess dead and increasingly fire-receptive fuels, along with newly opened canopies, will all contribute to enhanced wildland fire potential as long as the fire environment allows.”

Portions of Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, will also have heightened wildfire potential, along with southern areas of Alaska.

Click here to read the full report.

Wildland firefighter pay boost approved by Congress after years of anxiety

Hunter BasslerMarch 15, 2025March 15, 2025Firefighter pay, United States, Wildland Firefighter6 Comments

After years of anxiety, a pay boost for wildland firefighters approved in 2021 was just permanently signed into law.

U.S. lawmakers avoided a government shutdown Friday night after they approved the “American Relief Act” federal budget. As part of the government funding, it also approved the 2025 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which boosted firefighter pay.

The act increases wildland firefighters’ special hourly base rates depending on an employee’s GS, or General Schedule, level. The increases include:

GS–1, 42 percent
GS–2, 39 percent
GS–3, 36 percent
GS–4, 33 percent
GS–5, 30 percent
GS–6, 27 percent
GS–7, 24 percent
GS–8, 21 percent
GS–9, 18 percent
GS–10, 15 percent
GS–11, 12 percent
GS–12, 9 percent
GS–13, 6 percent
GS–14, 3 percent
GS–15, 1.5 percent

It also requires firefighters to receive premium pay for instances when they’re deployed to wildfires. The daily pay is equal to 450% of one hour’s wages when they’re responding to an incident outside of their official duties or assigned to a separate fire camp.

The pay boost has been a source of anxiety for the nation’s wildland firefighting force not long after the Biden Administration approved a $20,000 retention bonus in 2021. The bonus was only supplemental and legislators intended to enact a permanent pay increase.

That boost wasn’t made into reality until Friday night, majorly due to the legislative and lobbying efforts of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters advocacy group.

“I feel comforted by the fact that House Republicans included the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act in the House Interior Appropriations bill and that the Senate is there to match right alongside,” Jonathon Golden, a member of Grassroots, previously told WildfireToday. “My thought is that when we see a final Fiscal Year 2025 budget, we will also see some version of WFPPA that will make into law a higher pay for wildland firefighters.”

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: After years of anxiety, U.S. wildland firefighter pay boost may finally become permanent in 2025

Trump’s EPA may change obscure rule in attempt to increase prescribed burns

Hunter BasslerMarch 14, 2025Uncategorized5 Comments

The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s top official announced Wednesday the agency will start the process of changing a decade-old rule with the hopes of increasing prescribed burns.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, appointed earlier this year by President Donald Trump, said he has asked staff to specifically revisit the agency’s Exceptional Events Rule, which Zeldin claims has partially stood in the way of communities increasing their prescribed burning efforts.

The rule has long held prescribed burning in a gray area. The policy allows states to be exempt from meeting national air quality standards during “exceptional events,” or times of high pollution readings that states can’t control, like wildfires. However, a study published in February said prescribed fires may not always meet the exemption.

Since the practice is human-caused, is likely to recur, and is preventable, the current EPA policy would disqualify them as “exceptional events” and may lead to federal violations and financial penalties for states, according to the researchers. For this reason, EPA staff said that prescribed burns are virtually never nominated for exclusion under the rule.

“The relevant parts of the rule are very complex, but, to simplify, they indicate that if a prescribed burn complies with certain regulations and standard practices, it will be deemed by the agency to be “not reasonably controllable or preventable” and classified as a “natural” rather than “human-caused” event, such that the “unlikely to recur” requirement no longer applies,” the study said. To qualify, prescribed burns must comply with smoke management plans that reduce pollution effects and multiyear land resource management plans that set the frequency and location of burns. These requirements are quite complex and potentially burdensome.”

Zeldin affirmed that prescribed fires are necessary to protect communities from future catastrophic wildfires, but it’s unclear what changes he could make to the rule in order to increase prescribed burn activity. The EPA could have outright excluded as prescribed fires from the Exceptional Event Rule, but doing so may have incentivized states to avoid such burns and, instead, risk wildfires that are already exempt, the researchers said.

“As air quality standards are tightened, and as efforts are made to increase the pace and scale of prescribed fire on the landscape, it is possible that emissions from prescribed fires could have increased implications for nonattainment status,” the study said. “Indeed, the recent rulemaking process that lowered the annual PM2.5 standard raised significant concern within the forest management community over potential constraints the revised standard might impose on use of prescribed fire.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: