Why the U.S. just summoned firefighters from Australia and New Zealand

[bemildred]

Source: WaPo

First they called in the U.S. military — and Canadian firefighting support. But with the nation still at wildfire preparedness Level 5 — the highest there is — and spending $ 150 million per week fighting fires, it still hasn’t been enough.

So now, 71 firefighters from half the world away, Australia and New Zealand, are being called up to help, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

“We currently remain at National Preparedness Level 5, our resources are fully committed and there are no season-ending weather events in the foreseeable forecast,” said National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group chair Aitor Bidaburu in a statement. “Because of the current level of commitment and forecast, having fire management expertise from Australian and New Zealand firefighters will be of tremendous help as we continue suppressing ongoing fires.”

As of Thursday, there were 76 large fires across the United States, including 14 in California, 17 in Idaho, 11 in Montana, 12 in Oregon and 16 in Washington.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/08/21/why-the-u-s-just-summoned-firefighters-from-australia-and-new-zealand/

[heaven05]

1. Climate change related?

[bemildred]

2. Yeah. I live in California, not Washington, but I've been up in the mountains.

Lots of dead trees. I think the whole West coast is like that.

[Brother Buzz]

13. Mostly, the Bark beetles are killing the trees

Bark beetles are ravaging drought-weakened trees, and the population of beetles has skyrocketed because of the warm dry weather. Oh wait, I guess climate change is responsible and the beetles are only helping.

[bemildred]

17. Yes. I didn't look into it, I could see it was very dry.

I've been hiking and backpacking all over California since I was a kid. I've seen it hot and dry before, and I've seen plenty of fires, but not like this. Over the last ten years or so a lot of what I treasure here in So. Cal has been burned. And I can see more is coming. And then the floods this Winter when the El Nino hits will clean out the canyons GOOD.

Meanwhile we have government by PhotoOp.

[Nitram]

18. Bark beetles tend to attack trees that have already been damaged...

...by drought.

[Brother Buzz]

20. Bark beetles tend to attack all trees

Only healthy trees are able to fight off the infestation until they are overwhelmed with sheer numbers, and that is what we are seeing now; the Bark beetle population is off the chart.

Healthy trees may put up defenses by producing resin, which may contain a number of insecticidal and fungicidal compounds that can kill or injure attacking insects, or simply immobilize and suffocate them with the sticky fluid. Under outbreak conditions, the sheer number of beetles can, however, overwhelm the tree's defenses, and the results can be......

The drought is only making the Bark beetle's job easier

[happyslug]

21. Bark Beeltes tend to be very selective of the trees they bore into

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7421.html

http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/bark-beetle/

Thus one of the reason for the problem with Bark Beetles is the tendency to plant only one type of tree in an area, this permits them to grow in population with a lot of host trees around them.

In forests with more diverse tree population, the beetles are less of a problem.



http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/bark-pine-beetles-climate-change-diana-six

Please note, Bark Beetles tend to infest soft wood trees, i.e. evergreens, but hard wood/ deciduous trees, but they do affect Elm and Walnuts (but the Dark Beetles causing the damage in the west are NOT the ones that attack Elm or Walnut Trees).

[Brother Buzz]

23. Someone may need to update that map

There was a big infestation in the coastal range north of San Francisco, an area that just experienced two large wildfires; crown fires on ridges loaded with dead pine trees makes for a fast moving fire.

[central scrutinizer]

3. No such thing

Snowballs on the floor of Congress proved that.

[4lbs]

22. Yet it was a stupid demonstration. By that logic, since my fridge can still make ice cubes, I guess

there's no climate change or global warming.

So, there. It has been proven!

[barbtries]

26. and they know you're not poor

since you have a fridge.

aargh hell in a handbasket.

[tclambert]

27. One hundred percent of the samples Sen. Snowball Inhofe examined were colder than normal.

True, he only checked that one--Washington, D.C.--but one hundred percent! You can't get 100% of climate scientists to agree. There are always a few percent willing to sell their souls to oil companies for a few bucks.

To show you how shameless the climate change conspirators are, I'll predict they claim 2015 sets a new record for warmest year, despite the Senator's snowball.

[ananda]

19. I think so.

..

And this is only the beginning..

[2naSalit]

4. Was just

having coffee with my neighbor who is part of an essential firefighter air squad - had mandatory 48 hour leave - while he was receiving reassignment... back out into the smoke. Meanwhile, up here in Montana, I was called to see if I have a current "red card" yesterday. If I had a card I would have been "pulled" from my current summer position in a different agency to go fight fires for the duration. I may be called in for other duty, like dispatch, at some point if this stuff keeps up... which I fully anticipate. We're expecting some nasty dry lightning storms in the next few days which will ultimately result in a whole lot of new fires.

I feel like I instantly became a chain smoker without ever lighting a cigarette... we're under air quality warnings where large groups of the population are advised to remain indoors. A whole new meaning to "tequila sunrise" as that's the color of the sunrise the last two weeks.

Happy breathing everyone.

2na

[bemildred]

5. Stay safe and watch the air.

And thanks for your service.

[justhanginon]

7. Allow me to echo that. Tell him to be safe and please

pass on our thanks to all his buddies.

[2naSalit]

15. Done, and thanks.

[2naSalit]

14. You're welcome

from both of us. Buddy just blasted off and I was able to thank a couple of his compadres from Canada at the near-by "tanker base"... they were loading up with retardant and heading out too.

I now have to don my uniform and get to my current job and inquire about training for reassignment for myself.

Thanks for posting, this is a national issue right now and if anyone doesn't think so, they can just keep their head in the sand until there's no more oxygen left to breathe or arable land to grow food or water for anything.

[Yallow]

6. It's Gonna Get Worse

Just posted on DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112790160

[candelista]

8. More from the article re: wildfire trend:

As of now, 7,210,959 acres have been consumed, putting 2015 ahead of the pace of burn for all of the past 10 years.

It is only since 2004 that the United States has seen a national wildfire season with over 8 million acres burned, with reliable records going back to 1983. Starting with that year, there have been six of them.

[turbinetree]

9. And....................................

then, in this country and around the world, the planet has individuals running for the presidents office in the right wing clown car and even in the right wing government of Australia and Canada, and some twit less and witless senators standing on the floor of the senate with a snow ball in there proverbial hand, saying there is no evidence of global warming, climate change, because they aren't scientists and the 5% of scientists that say there is no global warming or climate change, going on any MSM or FIX NOISE saying such hogwash about there is no global warming or climate change, where are there they now haven't heard two words from any of them.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/global-warming.php
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/

But guess what we are going to pay $150 MILLION a week during the so called fire season (costing over $4.2 Billion in just 28 weeks) that goes from June to December and even in Alaska, while the ground water being taken out is making the land in California shrink and these right wingers go around saying ---------- hey, there no problem----------------really.

And whats really classic to pay for this STUFF------------they go after entitlements if you really think about it, they go after anything that isn't completely nailed down to pay peter and rob paul, when the solution is really simple green energy --------------amazing------------instead of greed

[2naSalit]

12. +1

[Yallow]

16. The Corporate Media Works For Exxon and Big Coal

Obviously.

[Demeter]

10. Of course, that's what the National Guard used to do

before the Military/Industrial/Corporate Complex decided they made better cannon fodder pursuing dreams of Empire in the Middle East and Asia....

Now the National Guard is shot to hell--literally--and the homeland is undefended. Way to go, Washington, DC!

[bemildred]

11. Good point. nt

[allan01]

24. thank you for your help auzzies and kiwis :)

in reality we are at defcon 4
http://www.defconwarningsystem.com/
because of the nonsense n korea and s korea is pulling . now children , go to your room for a time out

[BlueMTexpat]

25. I thank all firefighters from

wherever we can get them. There are real people being affected each day, not to mention the wildlife and ecosystems involved.

As a born and raised Montanan, with several family members still there - many of whom currently reside in the Stage II burn areas right now, I am very seriously concerned about the situation everywhere, but especially in my home state.

See, e.g., http://firerestrictions.us/mt/

Those who are not being directly affected by the fires are all having problems with the smoke.

[happyslug]

28. Austrailia and New Zealand have small forests....

New Zealand is two island, both with thick forests, but still an island, through New Zealand's islands are some of the largest in the World. In fact the North Island is the 14th largest island in the world, at 43,082 square miles, and the South Island is 12th largest island at 56,308 square miles (Together at just under 100,000 square miles, makes them together larger then the ninth largest island, Great Britain at 80,823 square mile (Through Ireland and Great Britain is larger then New Zealand).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_by_area

Austrailia is 2.9 million square miles, but it has a huge desert in the middle of the country.

My point is both, through they speak English (a big plus in dangerous situations), there are several contries with much larger forests.

Russia has 2.9 million square miles of forest, yes it has more forest then Australia has land.

http://www.borealforest.org/world/rus_mgmt.htm

Russia has 22% of the world's forest area (as defined by FAO - the most in the world. By comparison, the next largest forest countries are: Brazil with 16%, Canada 7% and U.S. 6 % of the world's forest cover.

http://www.borealforest.org/world/rus_mgmt.htm

US and Canadian forest fire teams have long worked together, thus Canadians are working with Americans in these forest fires at the present time. Most of Brazil's forest is in the Amazon basin, which tends to have high rain fall, but also has extensive Forest Fire Capacity and Experience.

In 2007 Russia sent its fire fighting planes to Greece, to help the Greeks fight they massive forest fires of that year:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6917002.stm

Russia did have a bad spat of fires in April, but today, Russia appears to be calm, thus has the workers to help America, if they can work around the language problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires

[ellisonz]

29. Climate change is exacerbating the fire season fueled by mismanagement and disrupted ecosystems.

Nature is breaking down and we are in the way with no plan to get out of it. There is no coordinated national plan for addressing more than a decade of large, increasingly expensive fires. We are using decades old equipment and techniques. There is no integrated command or preventative plan. 90% percent of wildfires are caused by human activity. That we are not experiencing an even greater loss of firefighters is a testament to their skill and bravery.

This is a good start to understanding the factors that are at play: http://headwaterseconomics.org/topic/wildfire

[Boudica the Lyoness]

30. I'm choking on the smoke right now.

We haven't had rain for months and the fires are starting by dry lightening strikes.