Wildfires and Their Effect On the Environment
Deadly wildfires on the west coast.
Deadly Wildfires Consume the West Coast
Wildfires are not only destructive but deadly. Millions of acres have been lost as these fires continue to trek through more than eleven different states. What is the origin of these calamitous #wildfires? Are we in the midst of an environmental Apocalyptic event? To answer these questions we must clarify what world wide destruction means when we mention such words as Apocalyptic or Armageddon. On the website jw.org it is described, “The term “Armageddon” (“Har-Magedon”) appears in the Bible book of Revelation. It refers to a unique war, ‘the war of the great day of God the Almighty,’ in which ‘the kings of the entire earth’ are mobilized for a final battle with God. Reference to such a war also apply in numerous other scriptures. Revelation 16:14-16; Ezekiel 38:22,23; Joel 3:12-14; Luke 21:34,35; 2 Peter 3:11,12.” Individuals and experts are concerned because some of the hottest temperatures ever along with lightning strikes ignited these wildfires. Additional reasoning and research is required which was presented in national news stories.
On CBS This Morning anchorwoman Gayle King presented news on Wildfire Death Toll Rising. It was mentioned, “At least 16 dead, nearly 100 wildfires burning across 11 states.” Gayle went on to acknowledge, “We will begin in California where the death toll continues to rise from those historic wildfires burning in the western United States. Right now there are nearly 100 major fires still burning across 11 different states. They have destroyed more than 4.3 million acres. The deadliest is in California and it’s now called the North Complex West Zone Fire. After it was previously called the Bear Fire. Now that fire has killed at least ten people including seven victims. They were discovered yesterday. Carter Evans is in Butte County, California where those lives were lost. Carter what’s the latest on the story there? The pictures are amazing.”
Carter Evans responds by explaining, “ Well Gayle the pictures are amazing and this is something you don’t see very often. This is a fire station burned to the ground. The fire truck still inside gives you an ideal how fast that fire was moving. It’s so bad in California there now getting help from Canada and they‘re even calling in firefighters from Israel... We saw fire crews beat back a flare up as we were driving here to Berry Creek. There are at least 14,000 firefighters battling at least 29 fires. Three million acres have burned so far. In Oregon this is all that’s left in one community in Eagle Point. President Trump has approved an Emergency Declaration in that state as wildfires have scorched nearly 1 million acres. Now that is double Oregon‘s yearly total and it happened in just the last three days. Nearly half a million people have been forced to evacuate. Now at least 16 people were killed in these fires so far. Including a one year old baby in Washington State. Now his parents survived. They’re in the hospital with third degree burns and his mother loss her unborn baby.“ Those parents had to be devastated to not only lose their baby and unborn child but also their personal property as well. My heart and prayers goes out to all of the residents in these area.
Tony Dikoupil was shocked as he said, “Wow! We’re seeing a lot of things we’ve never seen before. Jeff these pictures out of San Fransico Bay area. It looks like a scene from Blade Runner. Really #apocalyptic looking kind of an orange haze no filter at all. What was causing that?”
Specialist Jeff Berardelli explained, “So its not climate change and we hope we think it’s not the apocalyptic,right. But what it is very similar to sunrise and sunset. When light has to go through a wide part of the atmosphere it gets scattered a lot more. So what happens in places like San Francisco for weeks on in the smoke was not blowing into town. Now it’s blowing into town now, the air became stagnant. It got trapped and what happens is doing sunrise and sunset the light shines through and it gets scattered and it reveals the spectrum of colors and the last spectrum of those colors is red and orange. So if you have thick enough smoke, thick enough pollution it will scatter and your eye will only see the reds and the oranges. So just like sunrise and sunset when it’s really smoky it has kind of the same affect, it turns the sky orange.“
Tony asked a final question, “It does make for a memorable picture. Is there anything people can do out west right now to improve the situation that there living through?” Jeff responded, “Everybody can do something but even one person, a group of people or even a region like the west can’t do it alone. This is a global problem. We need systematic, collective solutions. But here’s the good news. This actually is an opportunity for us to create a better life for ourselves. We need to throw every solution the whole kitchen sink at this. The good news is we no what the problem is. We know what the solution is and now we have the technology for it. #Renewable energy is becoming cheaper than #fossil fuels and we have to lessen our addiction to fossil fuel in order to combat this problem. The good news is because it’s becoming cheaper and economically feasible. It’s better for the economy. By the way it’s creating tons of jobs, right. The number one and number three job occupation growth are solar and wind technician in America. So it’s creating great American jobs and because the economy is moving in the right direction; l think we should seize on this as an opportunity.”
The opinions of Jeff Berardelli was appreciated as a specialist in his field of meteorologist. We also appreciate the great reporting by members of CBS This Morning‘s news team. I am in agreement with some of these points but once again my hope for better conditions on the earth can only come through one definite source and that is Jehovah God’s kingdom ruled by his precious son Jesus Christ. It is decribed at Daniel 2:44 which states, “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms.“ (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures) How beautiful the earth will be when that kingdom is established on earth where there will be no wildfire, climate changes, sickness or death. Jehovah God wants these wonderful conditions and promises for every human being living on earth today Including those have died and are in his memory.
A video from YouTube that show how the wildfires look from space as they burn on the west coast.
“High-Tech Fire Fight Remote Cameras Detect Wildfires Early, Cutting Response Time”
“Now firefighters like Cal Fire San Diego Unit Chief Tony Meachem are increasingly turning to a statewide network of nearly 650 fire cameras. As soon as a flare up is spotted firefighters remotely control nearby cameras” so that the location of the fire can be discovered faster. What use to take “20 or 30 minutes to get to the fire...We’re doing within seconds.”
— Chief Tony Meacham of Cal Fire San Diego Unit
High-Tech Remote Cameras that Detect Wildfires to Cut Response Time for Firefighter
Wildfires such as the #Bond Fire “started last week has destroyed at least thirty structures. It was spotted by a #remote camera network that firefighters used to locate wildfires and dispatch crews,” said news anchor Anthony Mason of CBS This Morning television series.
News Correspondent Carter Evans of CBS This Morning news discussed “how the cameras are making a big difference. The massive wildfires that have torn through California burn with an intensity few have seen before. Entire towns overrun by flames moving at unprecedented speeds and some barely made it out alive. Now #firefighters like Cal Fire San Diego Unit Chief Tony Meacham are increasingly turning to a statewide network of nearly 650 fire cameras. As soon as a flare up is spotted, firefighters remotely control nearby cameras...” This will enable them to locate the fire faster.
Meachem went on to give greater details about this high-tech camera system and how effective it can be. “The things that our fire ground commanders do on the ground that use to take us 20 or 30 minutes to get to the fire... Now we’re doing within seconds. I can’t even put into words. Our dispatchers will start moving additional resources toward the fire before the first firemen are even on the scene asking for that. What we’ve done we’ve built the modern day #fire tower.”
Carter Evans also interviewed Geologist Neil Driscoll, “a part of the nonprofit alert wildfire” system. The cameras were proposed by Driscoll. “At the site of a nearly 100 year old fire tower, on a clear day they can see on the order of 70 miles. At night using the near infrared they can see about 100 to 120 miles.” Evans went on to explain, “When the #Lilac fire exploded in #San Diego in 2017 commanders were able to watch the fast moving flames on the cameras and quickly determined the engines they dispatched would not be enough.“ Tony Meachem agreed by explaining, “We doubled the initial response that we sent. We had over 40 fire engines going to the Lilac fire within the first ten minutes before units were even on the scene.”
Quiestions were asked by Evans regarding whether these hi-tech cameras save lives and what was it like to see “the fire approaching one of these camera?” Meacham laughed nervously and said, “It’s a little scary.” Another question was mentioned concerning the cost as Carter Evans explained, “Each camera station can cost up to $40,000 often paid for funding from the state and local utilities. A small price according to the Chief.” Meachem summed up his interview with this statement: “When we measure the cost of wild land fires now, we’re measuring the millions of dollars per day to suppress the fires so what a $30 or $40,000 camera that allow to allocate sources to put that fire out quicker in the long run l think we’re saving the state money through the camera network.” News anchor Gayle King agreed, that the results of these high-tech cameras can not only be lifesaving but is “money well spent when you see the results.”
“Eye On Earth” A News Series that Review How Climate Change Contributes to Severe Wildfires
Each of us must ask ourselves is #climate change contributing to these wildfires? Whether we live on the east or west coast we must be genuinely concerned about the effects of our climate conditions. News anchorman Tony Dokoupil of CBS This Morning featured a powerful story where he explained, “In our series Eye On Earth, we are looking at how climate change is contributing to these severe wildfires. Take a look at Federal Satellite footage. This is from Noah and it shows smoke billowing from #California and Oregon extending far over the Pacific ocean. Several of the California fires start when a lightning seige with nearly 12,000 strikes in,a week hit the state last month. CBS Meteorologist and Climate Specialistp Jeff Berardelli join us now. Jeff good morning to you. It’s hard to overstate how extreme this fire season has been. Three out of the four largest fires to ever ignite in California are burning right now. What’s going on here?“ Dokoupil asked.
There are obvious reasons why climate change has caused such a negative effect on our environmen which can contribute to wildfires. Jeff Berardelli gave these explanations, “So we have a short term reason and then there’s a lomg term reason for this. The short term reason is we had two unprecedented heat waves back to back. Some of the hottest temperatures ever experienced in the southwest and in California. Both of them basically unprecedented. Made worst by climate change and they really dries out the foliage. It dries out the brush. It dries out the trees. On top of that its been very dry. There hasn’t been much rain and we had a bad drought in most of the west and especially in places like Oregon. That’s the short term reason. The long-term reason is mostly climate change. Yes, there is a build up of branches that’s for sure but climate change is making things worse because over the course of the past few decades air temperatures in the west have risen a couple degrees to a few degrees depending upon where you are. What that does add is energy in heat to the atmosphere that dries out the brush and it dries out the atmosphere. It causes a moisture gap or moisture deficit in the atmosphere and research shows that that moisture deficit can explain almost all of the increase in burned areas since the 1970s. And because of that since the 1970s we have seen an increase five times in burned areas in California.“
Jeff continued his news report by explaining, “ Fire season is two to three months longer than it was and also 17 of the 20 worse fires have burned since 2000. And we have a graphic to show you that's really amazing. It shows you in the yellow bars the burned area each and ever year over the past several years. Notice what happened in the year 2020. That is off the charts and that’s because we have seen a rise in temperature. So there is a direct correlation between climate change and burn areas. If you look at the chart we are only halfway through 2020.”
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2010 Claudette Coleman Carter
