wildfires

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

After Wildfires Plastic Pipes Are Polluting Drinking Water Systems – It’s A Risk In Urban Fires, Too

When wildfires swept through the hills near Santa Cruz, California, in 2020, they released toxic chemicals into the water supplies of at least two communities. One sample found benzene, a carcinogen, at 40 times the state’s drinking water standard. Our testing has now confirmed a source of these chemicals, and it’s clear that wildfires aren’t the only blazes that put drinking water systems at risk. In a new study, we heated plastic water pipes commonly used in buildings and water systems to test how they would respond to nearby fires. The results, released Dec. 14, show how easily wildfires could trigger widespread drinking water contamination. They also show the risks when only part of a building catches fire and the rest remains in use. In some of our tests, heat exposure caused more ...

Coping with Western wildfires: 5 essential reads

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Coping with Western wildfires: 5 essential reads

Intense wildfires are raging in California, Oregon and Washington state, spurring mass evacuations and leaving charred towns in their wake. A regional heat wave is keeping temperatures high and humidity low, creating difficult conditions for firefighters. These five articles from The Conversation’s archive explain what’s driving Western fires and how they’re affecting residents. 1. Welcome to the Pyrocene Age Many factors have combined to create conditions for today’s epic wildfires, including climate change, land use patterns and decades of fire suppression. Arizona State University emeritus professor Stephen Pyne, a historian of fire, argues that Earth may be “entering a fire age comparable to the ice ages of the Pleistocene, complete with the pyric equivalent of ice sheets, pluvial lak...

Smoke from wildfires can worsen COVID-19 risk, putting firefighters in even more danger

11Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Smoke from wildfires can worsen COVID-19 risk, putting firefighters in even more danger

Two forces of nature are colliding in the western United States, and wildland firefighters are caught in the middle. Emerging research suggests that the smoke firefighters breathe on the front lines of wildfires is putting them at greater risk from the new coronavirus, with potentially lethal effects. At the same time, firefighting conditions make precautions such as social distancing and hand-washing difficult, increasing the chance that, once the virus enters a fire camp, it could quickly spread. As an environmental toxicologist, I have spent the last decade expanding our understanding of how wood smoke exposure impacts human health. Much of my current research is focused on protecting the long-term health of wildland firefighters and the communities they serve. Air pollution and ling...

Extreme wildfires can create their own dangerous weather, including fire tornadoes – here’s how

26Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Extreme wildfires can create their own dangerous weather, including fire tornadoes – here’s how

It might sound like a bad movie, but extreme wildfires can create their own weather – including fire tornadoes. It happened in California as a heat wave helped to fuel hundreds of wildfires across the region, many of them sparked by lightning. One fiery funnel cloud on Aug. 15 was so powerful, the National Weather Service issued what’s believed to be its first fire tornado warning. So, what has to happen for a wildfire to get so extreme that it spins off tornadoes? As professors who study wildfires and weather, we can offer some insights. How extreme fire conditions form Fires have three basic elements: heat, fuel and oxygen. In a wildland fire, a heat source ignites the fire. Sometimes that ignition source is a car or power line or, as the West saw in mid-August, lightning strikes. Ox...

Hurricanes and wildfires are colliding with the COVID-19 pandemic – and compounding the risks

26Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Hurricanes and wildfires are colliding with the COVID-19 pandemic – and compounding the risks

With a major hurricane hitting Louisiana and Texas and wildfires menacing the western U.S., millions of Americans are facing the complex risks of a natural disaster striking in the middle of a pandemic. The steps people normally take to prepare for a severe storm or to evacuate can contradict the public health recommendations for protecting themselves and others from COVID-19. That’s what millions of people were facing as Hurricane Laura intensified to a dangerous Category 4 storm on Aug. 26. More than half a million were under evacuation orders, including the cities Galveston, Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas. My urban resilience lab at Texas A&M University has been examining interactions between urban infrastructure, systems and people in disasters. At the onset of the COVID-19 pand...