Wildfire on EARTH Magazine

Inside the inferno: How large firenadoes form

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 15:00:55 -0400

Over five weeks in July and August 2018, the Carr Fire in Northern California burned 930 square kilometers, killing eight people, destroying 1,600 buildings and causing .6 billion in damage. Credit: Eric Coulter, Bureau of Land Management.

At 7:30 p.m. on July 26, 2018, the Carr Fire, which devastated the Redding, Calif., region, reached a terrifying crescendo as tornado-strength winds spawned a 5-kilometer-high “firenado” of smoke, ash and fire that whirled on the edge of the city for more than half an hour. Fire-generated vortices of this size have only been observed a handful of times. The Carr Fire vortex is now the best documented to date, and a new analysis of satellite and radar data collected before, during and after the event is shedding light on how firenadoes form.

Comment: After a disaster, should you gamble on returning? Paradise edition

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 14:39:02 -0500

Not much is left of Paradise, Calif., after the deadly Camp Fire scorched the area in November 2018. California Army National Guard soldiers helped conduct search operations and clear debris. Credit: bottom: U.S. Air National Guard, CC BY 2.0; top: U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Crystal Housman, CC BY 2.0.

Rumor has it that Paradise, Calif., might have originally been named “Par-O-Dice,” after a saloon that was supposedly there during the gold rush days, when the community first started. Or the origin of the name might come entirely from the town’s self-description as “a heavenly place to live.” Regardless of how it was named, Paradise is now gone. In November 2018, the Camp Fire burned most of Paradise to the ground. Will it be rebuilt? Should it be rebuilt?

Sunny Southern California burns, missing its coastal clouds

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 11:11:17 -0400

This NASA satellite photo taken in December 2017 shows fires burning last winter in Southern California. The fires were started by downed power lines and illegally set fires, and were exacerbated by dry vegetation and the Santa Ana winds. Credit: NASA.

Coastal Southern California is famous for cloudless blue skies all summer long, but it hasn’t always been that way. A new study indicates that cloud cover has decreased dramatically over the beaches between Los Angeles and San Diego since the 1970s. And that could affect fires in the region.

Down to Earth With: Wildfire meteorologist Craig Clements

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 14:06:19 -0500

Meteorologist Craig Clements is an associate professor and director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University. Credit: D. Schmidtz.

Not many people are able to combine their work and hobbies the way Craig Clements, a meteorologist at San Jose State University in California, has. “I was always interested in mountain weather,” he says. “I got into meteorology through my interest in mountaineering and climbing.”

A flammable planet: Fire finds its place in Earth history

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 07:07:24 -0500

For hundreds of millions of years, wildfires have shaped the planet. Credit: Naomi Kelly.

We owe Earth as we know it to fire. Fire-prone ecosystems cover 40 percent of the land surface today, and fires play a key role in maintaining many of the world’s major biomes, including grasslands, savannas, shrublands and boreal forests. It’s thought that global forests would double in extent in the absence of fire.

Western wildfires affect water quality

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 17:50:55 -0500

Wildfires are likely to increase sediment loads in watersheds across the U.S. West, according to new research. In this false-color image taken Oct. 21, 2017, by the Terra satellite, areas burned (dark gray) by recent wildfires in the vicinity of Santa Rosa and Napa, Calif., can be seen amid living vegetation (red). Credit: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.

Wildfires have burned increasing acreage in recent decades, a trend that’s expected to continue with global climate change. In the U.S. West, the frequency of fires has implications for water availability — both water used to fight wildfires and municipal water supplies, which can be contaminated by loosened debris from eroding, fire-burned slopes.

Benchmarks: October 8, 1871: The deadliest wildfire in American history incinerates Peshtigo, Wisconsin

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:53:00 -0400

On Oct. 8, 1871, the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, another, even more devastating fire in and around the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wis., burned nearly 500,000 hectares of land and killed as many as 2,500 people — more than any other fire in U.S. history. Credit: K. Cantner, AGI, based on a map from the Atlas of Wisconsin.

On Oct. 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned through 900 hectares of the city, killing as many as 300 people and leaving another 100,000 homeless. More than 17,400 buildings were destroyed and financial losses totaled more than $200 million at the time (equivalent to $3.7 billion in 2016 dollars).

Ancient wildfires suggest rising atmospheric oxygen helped end past ocean anoxia

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 17:15:07 -0400

Rising atmospheric oxygen levels may have spurred wildfire activity and helped bring an end to a bout of ocean anoxia about 180 million years ago. Credit: Chuck Hanlon, South Florida Water Management District, CC BY 2.0

Many times throughout Earth’s history, oxygen levels in the world’s oceans have decreased dramatically in episodes called oceanic anoxic events (OAEs), which have caused massive marine die-offs. In the Early Jurassic, for example, the Toarcian OAE has been linked with the extinction of many ammonite species and other sea life. However, how such episodes end remains largely unclear to scientists.

Burning grass releases more nitrogen pollution than burning wood

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 09:50:27 -0500

Researchers found that grass and crop fires produce more nitrogen pollutants than wildfires. Credit: USFWS, CC BY 2.0.

Smoke from fires — whether from wildfires or from residential and agricultural grass and crop burning — carries pollutants into the air that affect climate and can be toxic to humans and ecosystems. According to new research, smoke from crop and grass fires appears to contain higher levels of some hazardous nitrogen-containing chemicals than wood fire smoke. The work also calls into question whether certain chemicals commonly used as distinctive signatures of biomass burning are still valid.

Smokier U.S. West as climate changes

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 11:14:14 -0500

Jia Coco Liu and her team created an interactive map showing counties in the U.S. West most likely to suffer from high wildfire pollution events and elevated dangerous particulate matter. Credit: khanotations.github.io/smoke-map/.

Extended wildfire seasons and larger and more frequent burns will likely be the consequence of the hotter and drier conditions expected to result from climate change. New research shows that this expected surge in wildfires also poses a growing threat to human health.

Cave dripwater records wildfires

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 13:13:11 -0400

The landscape above Yonderup Cave in Western Australia, after a wildfire. Credit: Pauline Treble.

Water seeps through soil and bedrock before dripping from the roof of a cave and carries with it elements of the outside world and its climate history. That is why speleothems, cave structures formed via precipitation, can be studied as climate proxies. New research suggests that the chemistry of the cave dripwater can also contain the signature of wildfires that burned outside the cave, on the ground above the cave’s roof, yielding a more complex picture of the past.

Firefighting gets a leg up from earthquake sensor networks

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 13:28:36 -0400

An aircraft makes a fire retardant drop on the American Fire in Tahoe National Forest near Foresthill, Calif. The fire began on Aug. 10, 2013. Credit: U.S. Forest Service.

Seismic networks monitor ground motion in earthquake-prone regions like California and Nevada. Now, they may also help combat other natural hazards like wildfires, which are especially common in drought-stricken western states where parched landscapes create ideal conditions for fires to spread.

Benchmarks: February 7, 2009: Deadliest day of fire ever recorded in Australia

Wed, 06 Jul 2016 12:53:24 -0400

A bush fire burns near Steels Creek in Victoria on Feb. 7, 2009. Credit: ©Daniel Cleaveley, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

Fires were still burning a week after they started on Black Saturday in the Australian state of Victoria. Credit: NASA.

On Friday, Feb. 6, 2009, John Brumby, premier of the Australian state of Victoria, warned the public of the high risk of wildfires that weekend: “It’s just as bad a day as you can imagine and on top of that the state is just tinder-dry. People need to exercise real common sense tomorrow.” He was right. The next day, more than a dozen major fires and hundreds of smaller ones tore across the region, fueled by record temperatures and high winds. The so-called Black Saturday fires released more energy than 1,500 Hiroshima bombs, according to one fire expert. Together, the fires cost billions in damage and killed 173 people — the deadliest day of fires recorded in Australia.

Santa Ana winds get a fiery boost from the stratosphere

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 10:52:22 -0400

Smoke from the Springs Fire, about 75 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles, is seen in this satellite image from May 2, 2013. Credit: NASA.

Southern California’s Santa Ana winds have long been implicated in the region’s dangerous and destructive wildfires. Now, a new study in Geophysical Research Letters points the finger at an accomplice: a phenomenon called stratospheric intrusions, which are natural atmospheric events that bring warm, dry air from the upper atmosphere down to the surface. These intrusions may exacerbate fires, as well as the region’s infamously bad air pollution.

Bark beetles not to blame for big fires?

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:19:11 -0400

Bark beetles flourish in warm, dry conditions and have killed millions of hectares of pine forests in the western U.S. Credit: Don Becker, USGS.

Since the mid-1990s, outbreaks of voracious bark beetles have devastated more than 71,000 square kilometers of forests in the Rocky Mountain West. Contrary to popular belief, however, the huge swaths of standing dead trees left behind don’t necessarily pose an increased fire hazard, according to a new study. The finding calls into question the efficacy of recently enacted policies entailing the thinning of beetle-killed forests.

Flames fan lasting fallout from Chernobyl

Mon, 04 May 2015 13:08:03 -0400

Forest fires in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have the potential to spread radioactive contamination as far as Turkey and Scandinavia. Credit: ©Hrebenjuk Oleksandr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded during a catastrophic meltdown, spewing radioactivity over Eastern Europe and forcing evacuations of thousands of people. Nearly 30 years later, the scar of the Chernobyl disaster remains in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in the form of the 2,600-square-kilometer Exclusion Zone, which is choked with dead trees and overgrown brush contaminated with high levels of radioactive cesium, strontium and plutonium. Occasional wildfires in these woods send plumes of smoke laced with potentially harmful radionuclides into the atmosphere. Now, a new study finds that climate change will likely increase the frequency and intensity of these fires, further increasing the possible hazard.

Fire-driven clouds and swirling winds whipped up record-setting New Mexico blaze

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 12:32:02 -0400

When it struck, the 2011 Las Conchas Fire was the largest wildfire in New Mexico's history. Credit: Kari Greer/U.S. Forest Service.

At about 1 p.m. on June 26, 2011, a wind-downed power line sparked a blaze in the Las Conchas area of Santa Fe National Forest. It would become the largest fire in New Mexico’s history at the time. Within hours, the flames spread to cover more than 160 square kilometers, threatening the town of Los Alamos, home of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which develops nuclear fuels and safeguards nuclear weapons, among other activities. Now, a new study identifies why the fire spread so far so fast, and the results may have implications for fire management practices in other mountainous regions.

Bare Earth Elements: Rim Fire Roundup

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 10:16:58 -0400

[UPDATED Aug. 27, 3:15 p.m. EDT: According to the most recent information from Cal Fire, the burn area has now grown to 726 square kilometers (179,481 acres), making it the 7th largest fire by area in California history). The fire has reportedly destroyed 111 structures, including 31 residences, while containment is holding at 20 percent.]

Drought outlook indicates further problems in Plains and West

Tue, 28 May 2013 17:03:03 -0400

A devastating drought currently affects almost half of the contiguous U.S., with conditions expected to persist or intensify in many of these areas, according to an outlook released this month by the National Integrated Drought Information System.

The U.S. is no stranger to drought; the last 15 years have brought some of the most severe and widespread droughts the country has seen since the late 19th century. But the last few years have been especially tough. In 2011, many south-central states, including Texas, experienced D4 drought conditions — the highest drought rating on the government’s drought scale — from June through December. For some of these areas, drought lasted through the winter of 2011-2012, only to intensify again in the summer and spread to a wider area, affecting 65 percent of the contiguous U.S. at its peak — although D4 intensities affected a smaller area than the year before.

N.E.O.N.: Studying critical ecological issues on a continental scale

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:08:30 -0400

The High Park Fire burned 350 square kilometers in Colorado last summer. Credit Laura Bojanowski

Project BudBurst is a key part of NEON's outreach component: Students and citizens across the U.S. will monitor the timing of biological events in plants and animals — including flowering, hibernation, reproduction and migration — and how they are influenced by variations in seasons, climate and habitat. Courtesy of Carlye Calvin, University Center for Atmospheric Research, Project BudBurst

A mountain stream in the Desert Southwest will be studied through NEON. NEON

One of the eco-climatic domains to be studied include fields in the Northern Plains. NEON

On the morning of June 9, 2012, a column of thick smoke was seen rising from Roosevelt National Forest 24 kilometers west of Fort Collins, Colo. Spurred by tinder-dry conditions, hot temperatures and gusting winds, the initial 8,000-square-meter High Park Fire quickly exploded out of control, ultimately becoming the second-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The blaze killed one person, burned more than 350 square kilometers, and destroyed 259 homes before firefighters contained it three weeks later.

Policy in the Field: U.S. fire policy in the wake of catastrophic fire seasons

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:25:35 -0400

Somebody turn down the heat!

Almost every region of the U.S. was on fire at some point in June. The fourth-hottest June on record in the United States, June 2012 also rounded out the hottest 12-month period since record-keeping began in the U.S. in the 1890s. July was the single hottest ever recorded.

Voices: Wildfires and debris flows: Federal mud

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:09 -0500

“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.”

– Joan Didion, California author

In 2010, California was struck by 6,656 wildfires, due in large part to the strong and extremely dry Santa Ana Winds that sweep through Southern California and northern Baja California in the late fall and winter. These fires often lead to debris flows after the winter rains set in.

Report from Ground Zero

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

On Sept. 16, 2001, smoke still rose from the ground where the World Trade Center buildings once stood. Gregg Swayze, USGS

Halema'uma'u crater on Kilauea volcano in spring 2008. USGS researchers have assessed the characteristics of volcanic ash from this and other volcanoes. USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Scanning electron microscope image of an elongated crystal of silica found in Mount St. Helens ash in 2004. Heather Lowers, USGS

USGS researchers characterized the extensive dried mud deposits left behind by the flooding from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Courtesy of John Lovelace, USGS

Smoke from wildfires blankets the San Diego area in October 2007. USGS researchers studied ash left behind by these fires and are beginning to analyze ash and smoke carried downwind from wildfires. Greg Mendez, USGS

Microscopic framboidal pyrite was found in mud samples from eastern New Orleans suburbs in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes. The pyrite was likely from marsh sediments. Greg Meeker, USGS

NASA satellite image shows the different wildfires burning on Oct. 24, 2007, and the extent of the downwind smoke plumes that enveloped much of the Southern California coast. NASA

USGS geophysicist Ray Kokaly takes field reflectance spectroscopy measurements of ash and soil in Southern California burned areas. Todd Hoefen, USGS

How geoscientists aid in the aftermath of environmental disasters

People around the world remember when they first learned of the attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. For me, the memories are vivid — my feelings of shock, horror and sadness were similarly etched on the faces of all the attendees of a mining and the environment workshop in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I was speaking. At that time, I had no idea that our small research group at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colo., would soon be called upon to help public officials understand the potential health and environmental implications of the disaster and the ensuing rescue, recovery and cleanup efforts.

Trial by Fire

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

What makes a fire burn? In addition to fuel (such as wood or paper) and heat, fires need oxygen. If there isn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere, combustion simply won’t happen.

That was as true hundreds of millions of years ago as it is today. So wildfires, scientists say, can provide a unique way to estimate how much oxygen was in Earth’s atmosphere throughout its history.

When wildfires attack: Should I stay or should I go?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

As California enters its third consecutive year of drought, officials are standing by for the state’s wildfire season, set to peak later this summer. They have reason for concern: During the previous two summers alone, wildfires have burned more than 12,000 square kilometers and killed more than two dozen people. A new study offers advice on how California can minimize wildfire deaths and save property: Don’t force residents who live near the margins of forest and urban areas to evacuate; instead, give them the option of staying and defending their homes.