Wildfire Today

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Wildfire Today

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2014 Fire Season: Least amount of acreage burned in 10 years

Author BillPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 11 Comments on 2014 Fire Season: Least amount of acreage burned in 10 years

Although thousands of fires have ignited across the country in 2014, to-date this year’s fires have burned fewer acres than other fire seasons since 2004.

As of July 3, fires have burned 909,848 acres across the United States, according to fire statistics released by the National Interagency Fire Center last week.

That’s about half of the total acres burned by July 3, 2013. It’s also the least amount of acreage burned by July 3 since 2004.

By July, fires typically consume more than one million acres, and in some cases two or three million.

  • The number of active fires as of July 3 is 26,684. That’s about average since 2004.
  • Since 2004 the “largest” fire season was 2011 when 4,859,621 acres had burned by July 3.
  • There are 12 active “large” fires on NIFC’s radar this month. Most are in California and Nevada.
  • As of July 3, six new large fires were reported.

09,848909,848

Utah’s Taylor Mountain Road Fire damages homes

Author BillPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

UPDATE 1:44 p.m. MDT: Local TV station KSL is reporting that three homes have been “severely damaged” by the Taylor Mountain Road fire. Read more here. 

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The Taylor Mountain Road Fire in northeastern Utah continues to burn Monday morning, and has destroyed one family’s home, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The fire started on July 5 and grew rapidly, prompting evacuations north of the town of Vernal, near Steinaker State Park. As of Monday morning, the fire had burned 3,167 acres and was at 25 percent containment.

 

Steinaker State Park remains closed. Officials did not have numbers of homes that remain at risk from the fire.

 

Military base training suffers due to increased wildfires, report says

Author BillPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

Several U.S. military bases have cut back on certain training maneuvers due to wildfire and other severe weather risks, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last week.

While extreme weather shut down training, some bases had to spend more money to complete training elsewhere, the report said.

The report to Congress examines the Department of Defense’s ability to adapt to climate change at military bases around the country. It found that nine of 15 bases examined had heavy rain or severe drought that either damaged infrastructure or prevented training exercises.

At least one base in a drought-prone area limited live-fire training due to heightened wildfire risk. In 2012, wildfires near other bases shut down access to ammunition, while in other years bases had to limit ammunition use due to wildfire risk.

As a result, units have had to spend extra time and money to travel to other installations to complete their required training. (page 15 of the report)

The report examined several climate change aspects, including increased storm activity, mudslides, rising sea levels and changing ocean temperatures.

Read the report here.

As part of its recommendations, the GAO suggested gathering more data on future impacts of climate change, as well as stream-lining climate adaptation projects frequently sidelined by other military projects.