Latest news with #wildfires
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Heatwave across the Med sparks health and fire warnings
Southern European countries braced Friday for a punishing weekend heatwave, with temperatures predicted to hit up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and beyond, prompting health warnings and fears of wildfires. The searing heat spreading across the Mediterranean from the Iberian peninsula to the Balkans and Greece comes as climate scientists warn that galloping human-induced climate change is causing more extreme weather, including longer and more intense heatwaves. Tens of millions of people have already been sweltering in what the National Weather Service called an "extremely dangerous" heatwave across the eastern United States, including in New York and Washington, straining the power grid as people cranked up air conditioning. Across the Atlantic in Spain, emergency medical staff readied to deal with an expected surge in heatstroke cases, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses. In neighbouring Portugal, the national meteorological agency IPMA said the heatwave would hit from Saturday, with temperatures passing 40C in the south as well as in the central Tagus and northern Douro valleys. Sunday will be even hotter, the agency added, and two-thirds of the country has already been put on orange alert. Temperatures are expected to hit 42C in the capital Lisbon. - Red alert in Italy - The risk of fire is at its highest inland in the northern half of Portugal, as well as on the Algarve coast popular with holidaymakers in the south. France has been gripped by its 50th national heatwave since 1947 for more than a week now, and four regions in southern France were placed under an orange alert on Friday -- the second-highest warning. Temperatures were expected to reach 35C to 38C locally, and up to 39C inland. The Meteo France weather agency said surface sea temperatures from the Mediterranean were an "aggravating factor" that could make nights "more stifling". Additional French regions are expected to be placed on orange alert on Saturday as the heatwave spreads north, and the soaring temperatures are expected to last until Tuesday, said the agency. In Italy, the health ministry issued its top red alert for 21 cities this weekend, including the capital Rome, the economic powerhouse Milan and Venice, where the rich and famous were celebrating the wedding of Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos. People were advised not to go outdoors between 11:00 am and 6:00 pm, and to seek shelter in air-conditioned public places. In Venice, the temperature was set to hit 32C on Saturday, when Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are expected to be throwing a dance party starring Lady Gaga -- but it will feel like around 36C due to humidity. In Florence, which was already on red alert on Friday, the temperature is forecast to reach 37C on Saturday, while it will go up to 36C on Sunday in Rome, Milan and Naples. - Albania battles fires - Across the Adriatic, the authorities in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia also issued health warnings, while in Albania, firefighters battled Thursday to bring at least eight blazes under control after flames destroyed dozens of homes in the south of the country last weekend. Further south, weather agencies in Greece forecast a heatwave in the coming days with temperatures of more than 40C, including in the capital Athens. The country has become particularly vulnerable to summer fires in recent years fuelled by strong winds, drought and high temperatures linked to climate change. Firefighters said Friday a forest blaze that had forced evacuations around Athens was under control, but warned that scorching temperatures were keeping fire risk at a high level around the capital and on northern Aegean islands. Fields, olive groves and some houses were ravaged by the blaze around Athens, which came after another on Greece's fifth-largest island Chios that destroyed more than 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of land in four days. burs-jj/jhb
CTV News
8 hours ago
- Climate
- CTV News
17 new wildfires spark in Alberta over 24 hour period
After a week of thunderstorms throughout the province, northern Alberta has seen an uptick in wildfires since things cooled down earlier this month. Alberta Wildfire said 17 new blazes have sparked since Thursday. There are 59 wildfires currently burning in the province's forest protection area, 18 are considered out of control. Evacuation orders for Peerless Lake, Trout Lake and Fort Chipewyan Lake are still in effect. Saddle Hills County's evacuation alert for the Blueberry Mountain area also remains in effect. More than 1,500 firefighters from Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the Canadian Forest Service, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, Australia, Costa Rica, Washington and the United States Forest Service are working on putting out blazes in the province. A fire ban is still in effect for the High Level and Fort McMurray forest areas in northern Alberta. Under the ban, all outdoor wood fires, fireworks, barbeque charcoal briquettes and exploding targets are prohibited. You can see if you are in a fire ban area here. Since Jan. 1, there have been 622 wildfires in Alberta, burning more than 676,000 hectares.
Washington Post
11 hours ago
- Business
- Washington Post
California court rules state insurance policy on smoke damage is unlawful
A California judge has ruled the state's bare-bones home insurance program's handling of smoke damage claims is unlawful, a decision that could have wide-ranging implications as insurers increasingly deal with the aftermath of wildfires. Home insurance broadly covers fire damage, but there is a growing dispute over what damage must be covered when flames don't torch the property. The decision Tuesday by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stuart M. Rice is a victory for homeowners in a state where the risk of catastrophic wildfires has intensified alongside a brewing home insurance crisis. The specific case involved Jay Aliff, who sued in 2021 over the insurance payout for his house near Lake Tahoe, which was damaged in the November 2020 Mountain View fire. His lawsuit challenged the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, or the FAIR Plan, the state's high-risk insurance pool or the last-resort option for those dropped by private insurance companies. With high premiums and basic coverage, the FAIR Plan was designed as a temporary safety net until policyholders could find a more permanent option. Today, it has become the default option for many, with the number of residential policies reaching 550,000 in March, more than double from 2020, state data shows. Reports from other urban wildfires , in which building materials, appliances, cars and more burn at incredibly high temperatures, show increased levels of heavy metals including lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzene that are tied to negative health risks. But insurance companies haven't standardized testing for those contaminants. The FAIR Plan has been scrutinized for years over allegations of summarily denying smoke damage claims unless there's proof of permanent physical change, even though the California Department of Insurance has long determined that that threshold is illegal. Aliff's lawsuit claims that FAIR Plan at the time offered a fraction of the money he expected to cover the costs to remediate the damages, citing a partial denial letter that said the fire debris could be cleaned up –- and therefore didn't qualify for coverage as a 'direct physical loss' to the home. 'The things that burn are terrifying like lead, cyanide. It's not possible to get that out with Swiffer,' said Aliff's attorney, Dylan Schaffer, referring to the brand of disposable mops. Schaffer, who is also the attorney in a number of other lawsuits against the FAIR Plan related to the smoke damage issue, said the new court ruling was a game-changer in California insurance law at a time when thousands of homeowners in the recent Palisades and Eaton wildfires are still fighting for coverage. 'It is the most important decision in California insurance law in decades,' Schaffer said. 'It draws a line in the sand as it relates to where carriers can start carving out their liability and avoiding liability.' The ruling said the way the FAIR Plan limits smoke damage coverage to its definition of 'direct physical loss' was a violation of the law, stating that 'this language limits coverage reasonably expected by an insured in a manner which is not conspicuous, plain and clear.' The judge also said it was unlawful that the FAIR Plan required smoke damage to be 'visible to the unaided human eye' or capable of being 'detected by the unaided human nose of an average person' rather than 'the subjective senses of (the insured) or by laboratory testing.' 'Being unable to resort to their own senses or laboratory tests, it is entirely unclear how an insured could determine whether a particular loss is covered or not,' the court decision noted. FAIR Plan spokeswoman Hilary McLean said in a statement that the insurer has been working with the state insurance agency to update its policy language and has already eliminated the so-called sight and smell test. 'Our goal is to continue providing fair and reasonable coverage for wildfire-related losses while maintaining the financial integrity of the FAIR Plan for all policyholders,' McLean said in a statement.
Associated Press
12 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
California court rules state insurance policy on smoke damage is unlawful
A California judge has ruled the state's bare-bones home insurance program's handling of smoke damage claims is unlawful, a decision that could have wide-ranging implications as insurers increasingly deal with the aftermath of wildfires. Home insurance broadly covers fire damage, but there is a growing dispute over what damage must be covered when flames don't torch the property. The decision Tuesday by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stuart M. Rice is a victory for homeowners in a state where the risk of catastrophic wildfires has intensified alongside a brewing home insurance crisis. The specific case involved Jay Aliff, who sued in 2021 over the insurance payout for his house near Lake Tahoe, which was damaged in the November 2020 Mountain View fire. His lawsuit challenged the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, or the FAIR Plan, the state's high-risk insurance pool or the last-resort option for those dropped by private insurance companies. With high premiums and basic coverage, the FAIR Plan was designed as a temporary safety net until policyholders could find a more permanent option. Today, it has become the default option for many, with the number of residential policies reaching 550,000 in March, more than double from 2020, state data shows. Reports from other urban wildfires, in which building materials, appliances, cars and more burn at incredibly high temperatures, show increased levels of heavy metals including lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzene that are tied to negative health risks. But insurance companies haven't standardized testing for those contaminants. The FAIR Plan has been scrutinized for years over allegations of summarily denying smoke damage claims unless there's proof of permanent physical change, even though the California Department of Insurance has long determined that that threshold is illegal. Aliff's lawsuit claims that FAIR Plan at the time offered a fraction of the money he expected to cover the costs to remediate the damages, citing a partial denial letter that said the fire debris could be cleaned up –- and therefore didn't qualify for coverage as a 'direct physical loss' to the home. 'The things that burn are terrifying like lead, cyanide. It's not possible to get that out with Swiffer,' said Aliff's attorney, Dylan Schaffer, referring to the brand of disposable mops. Schaffer, who is also the attorney in a number of other lawsuits against the FAIR Plan related to the smoke damage issue, said the new court ruling was a game-changer in California insurance law at a time when thousands of homeowners in the recent Palisades and Eaton wildfires are still fighting for coverage. 'It is the most important decision in California insurance law in decades,' Schaffer said. 'It draws a line in the sand as it relates to where carriers can start carving out their liability and avoiding liability.' The ruling said the way the FAIR Plan limits smoke damage coverage to its definition of 'direct physical loss' was a violation of the law, stating that 'this language limits coverage reasonably expected by an insured in a manner which is not conspicuous, plain and clear.' The judge also said it was unlawful that the FAIR Plan required smoke damage to be 'visible to the unaided human eye' or capable of being 'detected by the unaided human nose of an average person' rather than 'the subjective senses of (the insured) or by laboratory testing.' 'Being unable to resort to their own senses or laboratory tests, it is entirely unclear how an insured could determine whether a particular loss is covered or not,' the court decision noted. FAIR Plan spokeswoman Hilary McLean said in a statement that the insurer has been working with the state insurance agency to update its policy language and has already eliminated the so-called sight and smell test. 'Our goal is to continue providing fair and reasonable coverage for wildfire-related losses while maintaining the financial integrity of the FAIR Plan for all policyholders,' McLean said in a statement.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
USDA says repealing ‘roadless' protections will prevent wildfires. A new study disagrees
The Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire in Gila National Forest pictured at night in May 2012. A new study awaiting peer review from the Wilderness Society undercuts the United States Agriculture Department Secretary's claim that repealing the "Roadless Rule" will prevent wildfires. (Photo courtesy Gila National Forest) One big reason the United States Agriculture Department Secretary says she wants to strip protections for 58 million acres of federal forestland is to prevent wildfires, but a new study suggests allowing roads and logging into currently protected areas will do the opposite. A study from national environmentalist group The Wilderness Society concluded that more roads results in more wildfires, and said 'roadless' areas that comprise roughly 30% of the nation's federal forestland see far fewer wildfire starts. 'Building roads into roadless areas is likely to result in more fires. These fires will, on average, be smaller than fires farther from roads, but there will be more of them, and some of them will grow to become large fires,' lead author Greg Aplet concluded in a two-page summary of the study findings. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled her agency's plans earlier this week during the Western Governors' Association annual meeting in Santa Fe to repeal the 'Roadless Rule,' protections implemented in 2011 aimed at preserving wild forests. She said the rule hampers forest management and wildfire prevention and also said repealing the ban would get more 'logs on trucks' as the Trump administration seeks to rekindle a nationwide logging industry in federal forests. USDA Secretary in Santa Fe announces agency intends to repeal Clinton-era 'roadless' rule The Wilderness Society study, completed last month, is still undergoing peer review, according to the organization. Its authors, who submitted it for publication in the Fire Ecology journal, looked at three decades of wildfire ignition data across all national forests to determine whether higher wildfire frequency was found within 50 meters of roads. The authors determined that wildfire-ignition density was more than three times lower in areas protected as 'Inventoried Roadless Areas.' Specifically, those areas saw 1.9 fires per 1,000 hectares, which is about 4 square miles. The highest wildfire-ignition density occurred in areas within 50 meters on either side of a road, the authors found, where there were 7.4 fires per 1,000 hectares. The authors did the same analysis by region, and found wildfire density along roads in the Southwest ranked the highest in the country. Roughly 13 wildfires per 1,000 hectares occurred in this region, compared with roughly 3 wildfires per 1,000 hectares in 'roadless areas.' A Source New Mexico analysis of wildfire ignitions in the Gila National Forest had similar findings. Since 2014, the earliest year ignition data from the National Interagency Wildfire Center is readily available, roughly 1,400 wildfires have ignited within Gila boundaries, according to Source's analysis. Of them, about 15% ignited within 'roadless' areas with strict prohibitions against road construction or reconstruction, which comprise 20% of the forest area. Particularly in the southern part of the Gila, wildfire starts over the last decade appear to cluster alongside roads, according to Source's map below: The biggest fire in the Gila's recorded history and also the second-biggest fire in New Mexico history, the 320,000-acre Black Fire, did not start in a 'roadless' area, according to the Source New Mexico analysis. The Trout Fire, which is currently burning in the Gila, also did not start in the 'roadless' area. On Tuesday, United States Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz issued a statement applauding Rollins' move to repeal the 'Roadless Rule.' 'This decision would unlock 30% of the National Forest System, enabling common-sense forest management practices to strengthen the health and productivity of America's forests,' he wrote. He characterized wildfires burning in 'roadless' areas as increasingly destructive, thanks to overgrown and unmanaged forests that need to be thinned and accessible. 'The forests we know today are not the same as the forests of 2001. They are dangerously overstocked and increasingly threatened by drought, insect-born disease, and wildfire. It's time to turn the page on the Roadless Rule and return land management decisions where they belong – with local Forest Service experts who best understand their forests and communities,' he wrote. By the #s: Nearly a quarter of the Gila is protected as 'roadless.' Those protections could be nixed Even though the study found that wildfires tend to grow larger if they ignite in 'roadless areas,' doing so isn't necessarily problematic, Aplet, the study's lead author, told Source New Mexico on Thursday. By definition, 'roadless' areas don't have structures or other high value assets at risk, so often little reason exists to fully suppress wildfires that burn in wild forests, he said. Forest managers at the Gila in particular possess skill at allowing good fires to burn in the wilderness, Aplet said. 'The managers on the Gila at least, have allowed fires to burn on the Gila more than most national forests, and so those forests are less altered than areas that have been logged or other national forests that haven't been similarly managed,' Aplet said. 'And so when fires do burn on the Gila wilderness and 'roadless' areas, they have a better effect than they do on other lands.' Aplet said the study began back in President Donald Trump's first term, when Utah leaders were considering seeking a statewide exemption to 'Roadless Rule' protections, alleging that 'roadless' areas were a fire threat. 'This didn't sound right to us, so we looked into the numbers,' Aplet said. The state stopped pursuing the waiver, so Aplet's work stopped, but Trump's re-election prompted authors to take up the issue again, he said.
