wildfires - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Forest fires kill 112 in Chile’s worst disaster since 2010 earthquake

FIREFIGHTERS in central Chile battled to quell fierce forest fires that have killed 112 people so far and razed entire neighbourhoods, while President Gabriel Boric warned the country faces a "tragedy of very great magnitude". Hundreds of people are still missing, authorities say, stoking fears the death toll will keep climbing as more bodies are found on hillsides and houses devastated by the wildfires. The fires that gathered momentum on Friday now menaced the outer edges of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, two coastal cities popular with tourists. The urban sprawl of those cities accounts for more than a million…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Wildfires rage in France and Spain as heatwaves sear Europe

WORLD

LAYLI FOROUDI and SERGIO GONCALVES WILDFIRES raged in southwestern France and Spain, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes as blistering summer temperatures put authorities on alert in parts of Europe. More than 12,200 people had been evacuated from France's Gironde region by Saturday morning as more than 1,000 firefighters battled to bring the flames under control, regional authorities said in a statement. "We have a fire that will continue to spread as long as it is not stabilised," Vincent Ferrier, deputy prefect for Langon in Gironde, told a news conference. Wildfires have torn through France in…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Trump blames ‘forest management’ as Western wildfires become election issue

WORLD

TREVOER HUNNICUTT and JEFF MASON THE wildfires sweeping the west coast states have assumed centre stage in the U.S. election campaign, with President Donald Trump visiting California after blaming the blazes on poor forest management and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, stressing the role of climate change in stoking the fires. The Republican president, seeking re-election on November 3, is due to meet with firefighters and emergency officials in Northern California. Democrats have blasted Trump for remaining mostly silent about the largest wildfires in state history, except for his efforts to blame the blazes on failures by the state government.…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Search for survivors is on as wildfires torch millions of acres in U.S. West

WORLD

DEBORAH BLOOM and ADREES LATIF CREWS were to resume searching for the dead on Sunday among blackened ruins left by massive wildfires raging in three western U.S. states, where millions of acres have burned in weeks and "mass fatality" incidents are feared in Oregon. A blitz of wildfires across Oregon, California and Washington have destroyed thousands of homes and a half dozen small towns this summer, scorching a landscape the size of New Jersey and killing at least 26 people since early August. After four days of brutally hot, windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds blowing inland from the…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

Brazil’s Pantanal, world’s largest wetland, burns from above and below

WORLD

JAKE SPRING THE world's largest wetland is ablaze, but the fire is often invisible. In Brazil's Pantanal, the vegetation compacted under the marshy floodwater during the wet season dries out as ponds and lagoons evaporate, leaving flammable deposits underground that can continue to smoulder long after visible flames die down. Firefighters across Brazil are battling raging towers of flames from the Amazon rainforest to the Cerrado savannah, but the fires beneath their feet are a particular challenge in the Pantanal. The only way to combat an underground fires is to dig a trench around it, said state firefighter Lieutenant Isaac…