SUMMARY:Deadly [3] fires are closing major highways and threatening the homes of thousands under evacuation as they continue to grow in Butte and Los Angeles counties. And in Southern California, many were also mourning the recent shooting of 12 people at a Thousand Oaks bar. Sharon McNary from Southern California Public Radio joins Hari Sreenivasan for the latest.
SUMMARY: In Florida, a state of emergency is underway as more than 100 wildfires burn in and across all corners of the state. And since February, more than 7,000 acres have burned across the state, as Florida copes with rising temperatures and major drought. William Brangham sits down with Jim Karels, director of the Florida Forest Service, about how the state is combating the heat.
SUMMARY: Since Sunday, a wildfire burning in the heart of Canada’s oil country has forced nearly 100,000 residents to flee their homes for safety, creating the largest mass evacuation in Alberta’s history. Friday saw evacuees being ferried from the fire’s path via airlift and land convoy as the blaze spread across more than 300 square miles -- five times its original size. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Evacuees from an enormous wildfire moved to safety today in Alberta, Canada. They were ferried out by an airlift and a land convoy from a large section of the province, the heart of the country’s oil industry.
Hari Sreenivasan reports.
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HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): They rolled down a deserted highway about 50 vehicles at a time, taking evacuees south to safety.
Over the next four days, thousands will convoy from north of Fort McMurray, where they’ve been stranded, toward Edmonton. They’re driving through a fire zone that’s roughly ten times the size of Manhattan.
Chad Morrison is Alberta’s manager of wildfire prevention.
CHAD MORRISON, Manager of Wildfire Prevention, Alberta: No firebreak here would have stopped this fire, because this fire is jumping kilometers at a time. We’re seeing fire spreads where, you know, it’s creating its own lightning fires out of this fire. This is an extreme, rare, rare fire event and that’s something that’s historic for us.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The big blaze has scorched some 1,600 homes and buildings, burning entire suburbs, but, Alberta premier Rachel Notley says the Fort McMurray city center has survived, so far.
RACHEL NOTLEY, Premier, Alberta: As of this morning, the downtown is largely intact. The hospital is still standing. And municipal buildings and the airport also remain intact. Firefighters have also been working to save as much of the residential areas as possible.
HARI SREENIVASAN: More than 1,100 firefighters are on the fire lines, backed by 145 helicopters and 22 air tankers. But, there’s only so much they can do.
The fire first broke out Sunday, and by Tuesday, towering walls of flames closed in on the city, with a blanket of thick smoke choking the sky.
Some 88,000 residents fled for their lives, many of them to evacuation centers to the south.
SUMMARY: At least 1,600 homes and buildings have burned this past week in a fire in Alberta, Canada that continues to grow. So far no injuries have been reported, but more than 80,000 people have been displaced. New York Times reporter Ian Austen joins Megan Thompson via Skype from Canada to discuss.
STEPHEN FEE (NewsHour): On the shores of Lake Baikal, in Russian Siberia, unusually warm temperatures and dry conditions made for dangerous wildfire conditions this summer.
At least 1,500 square miles of forest burned until the flames died down in the past few weeks, leaving scorched earth and tree stumps where a once-lush forest stood.
Ecologists say the fires here could have a long-lasting impact on the delicate ecosystem around the lake, which is home to an estimated 20 percent of the world’s fresh, unfrozen water.
EKATERINA UDEREVSKAYA, ECOLOGIST RUSSIAN: Since the forests are being destroyed, groundwater gets lost. Drought starts, the springs that are still flowing dry out. It lowers the level of Baikal, which was already lower than critical.
STEPHEN FEE:The lake is one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world, home to 570 types of plants and more than 1,300 animal species, some of which are endangered.
Volunteers are now trying to plant one million new trees to restore the landscape.
IRINA VOLODCHENKO, VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR: Any citizen, any resident can come to the nursery, collect a sapling and plant it in a plot of ground. Anyone can join this action which allows you to express your concern about the common problem.
STEPHEN FEE:Even a million new trees won’t replace all the greenery lost, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. but volunteers say it’s a start.
IGOR FILIMONOV, VOLUNTEER: It’s just that we’re thinking of our future, of the future of our children for the kind of country we will live in and the air we will breathe.
SUMMARY: High temperatures, unpredictable winds and extremely dry conditions caused by the relentless drought have made managing this summer's blazes particularly challenging and unpredictable in California. The NewsHour's Cat Wise reports from Lake County, one of the state's hardest hit areas.
WOMAN: Is there a fire by you? Someone just called one in. And they said they’re seeing flames and black smoke.
CAT WISE (NewsHour): Rancher Lonne Sloan is keeping a close eye on the horizon these days. For the past week, Sloan and her husband, Larry, have been on the front lines of wildfires raging across California. Their 340-acre ranch, near the town of Lower Lake, went up in flames last Wednesday during one of the state’s biggest fires so far this year called the Rocky Fire.
WOMAN: This was our equipment shed. And the fire started over the hill.
CAT WISE: The Sloans, who managed to save their home with the help of nearby fire crews, estimate they lost about $150,000 worth of equipment, most of it uninsured.
WOMAN: And this was my horse trailer that is melted. I compete professionally in parades.
CAT WISE: Their property, like so many in the area, is now a moonscape totally devoid of any vegetation, a sign of the intensity of the blaze that went through here.
The Rocky Fire began July 29 and burned nearly 70,000 acres and 43 homes. It’s now almost fully contained. But on Sunday, a new wildfire, called the Jerusalem Fire, broke out nearby and quickly began spreading. It’s now about 30 percent contained, and has burned more than 20,000 acres.
The fires are burning in hilly terrain with heavy brush known as chaparral. High temperatures, unpredictable winds, and extremely dry conditions in the area have been a bad mix for firefighters.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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