Hawaii fire death toll nears 100, anger grows

LAHAINA - The death toll in Hawaii from the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century was expected to cross the 100-mark Sunday, fueling criticism that an inadequate official response contributed to the heavy loss of life.

Officials updated the toll to 93 late Saturday, but warned the figure was likely to rise as recovery crews with cadaver dogs continued the grim task of searching burned out homes and vehicles in the epicenter of Lahaina.

The historic coastal town on the island of Maui was almost completely destroyed by the fast-moving inferno early Wednesday morning, with survivors saying there had been no warnings.

When asked Sunday why none of the island's sirens had been activated, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono said she would wait for the results of an investigation announced by the state's attorney general.

"I'm not going to make any excuses for this tragedy," Hirono, a Democrat, told CNN's "State of the Union."

"We are really focused, as far as I'm concerned, on the need for rescue, and, sadly, the location of more bodies."

More than 2,200 structures were damaged or destroyed as the fire tore through Lahaina, according to official estimates, wreaking $5.5 billion in damage and leaving thousands homeless.

"The remains we're finding are from a fire that melted metal," said Maui Police Chief John Pelletier. "When we pick up the remains... they fall apart."

Among the ruins in Lahaina, a town of more than 12,000 and former home of the Hawaiian royal family, an iconic, 150-year-old banyan tree remained standing but severely burned, AFP journalists saw.

President Joe Biden said on Sunday he was "looking at" the possibility of visiting the island.

- Questions over alert system -

The wildfire is the deadliest in the United States since 1918, when 453 people died in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the non-profit research group the National Fire Protection Association.

The death toll surpassed 2018's Camp Fire in California, which virtually wiped the small town of Paradise off the map and killed 86 people.

Maui suffered numerous power outages during the crisis, preventing many residents from receiving emergency alerts on their cell phones.

No emergency sirens were sounded, and many Lahaina residents have spoken of learning about the blaze because of neighbors running down the street.

"The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack," resident Vilma Reed, 63, told AFP.

"You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us."

Reed, whose house was destroyed by the blaze, said she was depending on handouts and the kindness of strangers, while sleeping in a car with her daughter, grandson and two cats.

In its emergency management plan last year, the State of Hawaii described the risk wildfires posed to people as being "low".

Some residents who fled the flames have also expressed anger at a roadblock put up preventing them from returning to their homes.

Maui police said members of the public would not be allowed into Lahaina while safety assessments and searches were ongoing -- even some of those who could prove they lived there.

Some residents waited for hours hoping to be allowed in to comb through the ashes or look for missing pets or loved ones.

When asked about growing anger at the response, Hirono told CNN she understood the frustration because "we are in a period of shock and loss."

Maui's fires follow other extreme weather events in North America this summer, with record-breaking wildfires still burning across Canada and a major heat wave baking the US southwest.

Europe and parts of Asia have also endured soaring temperatures, with major fires and floods wreaking havoc. Scientists say human-caused global warming is exacerbating natural hazards, making them both more likely and more deadly.

Agence France-Presse

Sizzling heat wave blankets US Southwest

LOS ANGELES - Much of the western United States baked for a third day on Wednesday under a punishing heat wave that has set temperature records, prompted health warnings and strained power grids.

Although a shift in the weather has provided some relief to northern states, including Montana and Idaho, the worst was still to come for California and parts of the Southwest, National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Schoening said.

"We're in a long-duration heat wave across the Western U.S.," Schoening said. "Across the desert Southwest extending into California we're still ramping up the temperatures throughout the rest of the week."

Salt Lake City, Utah, on Tuesday tied its all-time high temperature since record-keeping began in 1894, at 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius). Phoenix tied a record for this date at 115 degrees and Needles, California, in the Mojave Desert near the border of both Nevada and Arizona, hit 121 degrees, also tying a daily record.

The National Weather Service has issued excessive heat warnings across the U.S. West, warning that such conditions can be dangerous, even fatal. No deaths had been reported from the brutally hot weather as of Wednesday afternoon.

"Try not to spend too much time outside during the hottest part of the day. Wear light clothing, stay hydrated," Schoening said, adding that residents should be "keeping an eye on pets, checking on the elderly, not leaving anyone, including kids or pets in hot cars."

WILDFIRE DANGERS

The weather service also issued red flag warnings of high fire danger in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. Major wildfires were burning in Colorado and Arizona.

Wildfires scorched more than 6,500 square miles (17,000 square km) of land in 2020, destroying hundreds of Californian homes during a particularly fierce fire season.

The unusually severe late-spring heat wave was the result of a high-pressure ridge that built over southwestern deserts, weather service meteorologists say, and could not be blamed directly on global warming.

"But studies show that as the climate changes and it gets warmer, we will see more of these anomalous events over time," Schoening said.

The brutal heat triggered a surge in electricity demand as residents cranked up air conditioners and fans. Texas and California, the two most populous U.S. states, urged energy conservation.

California's grid operator issued a "Flex Alert" for Thursday evening, telling residents to turn off unneeded appliances and office equipment between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. and thermostats higher.

California and Texas both imposed rolling blackouts over the last year to avoid a power system collapse, California due to the heat in August 2020 and Texas in February 2021 after a deep freeze that left millions without heat.

Much of the U.S. Southwest is also in the grip of a drought that has cut hydropower supplies, leaving rivers running dry and prompting ranchers to sell livestock.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates most of the state's power system, projected demand would break the June record, set on Monday, in the coming days.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, Aishwarya Nair in Bangalore and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)

-reuters-

Changing weather prompts more fire fears in California

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An unwelcome change in the weather, with higher winds, temperatures and lightning that threatens to spark new wildfires was coming Sunday to parched Northern California, where firefighters have for nearly a week battled three huge “complexes” of fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced tens of thousands to flee.

Firefighters made slow but hopeful progress in battling the blazes on Saturday, aided by good weather but hampered by smoky skies that grounded water-dropping aircraft for some of the day. Reinforcements arrived to bolster overwhelmed crews, and evacuation orders were lifted in some areas.

But the changing weather brought fears of new fires overnight and warnings from state and local officials for residents in threatened areas to prepare to flee at any moment.

“There’s not a feeling of pure optimism, but a feeling of resolve, a feeling of we have resources backing us up,” Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said.

Since Aug. 15, state fire officials said more than 12,000 lightning strikes across the state have ignited more than 500 wildfires. Of those, about two dozen major fires were attracting most of the state’s resources. Most of the damage was caused by three clusters of fire “complexes” that were ravaging forest and rural areas in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. They have burned 1,120 square miles (2,900 square kilometers).

Among the casualties were ancient redwood trees at California’s oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, plus the park’s headquarters and campgrounds. Smoke from the fires made the region’s air quality dangerous, forcing people to stay inside.

Overall, the fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses.

“Tuesday night when I went to bed I had a beautiful home on a beautiful ranch,” said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. “By Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes.”

The changing weather brought good news for some communities, including Boulder Creek, an old logging community of about 5,000 people in the Santa Cruz mountains. Fire officials said they expected the blaze to reach the community, but they took advantage of recent good weather to try to “herd” flames around the town.

The storms predicted for Sunday were expected to aid those efforts by changing the direction of the wind.

“As bad as that weather prediction is overall for certain parts of this fire, it actually is going to help us move it away from those certain communities,” said Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state’s firefighting agency.

Responding to the emergency, President Donald Trump issued on Saturday a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.

Fire officials, meanwhile, struggled to get enough resources to fight the two largest cluster of fires around the San Francisco Bay area that had grown to become the second-largest and third-largest fires in state history by size.

The fire burning in California’s wine country, north of the San Francisco Bay, had only 1,400 firefighters assigned to battle the blaze. By comparison, the state had 5,000 firefighters assigned to the Mendocino Complex in 2018, which still holds the record as the largest fire in state history — for now.

“All of our resources remain stretched to capacity that we have not seen in recent history,” said Shana Jones, the chief for CalFire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit.

Underscoring the danger the fires pose for firefighters, the Sonoma County sheriff’s office released dramatic video of the helicopter rescue Friday night of two firefighters trapped on a ridge line at Point Reyes National Seashore. They were hoisted to safety as flames advanced.

“Had it not been for that helicopter, those firefighters would certainly have perished,” Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said.

Associated Press

Thousands of tourists evacuate amid Australian wildfire

Boats are pulled ashore as smoke and wildfires rage behind Lake Conjola, Australia, Thursday. Thousands of tourists fled Australia's wildfire-ravaged eastern coast Thursday ahead of worsening conditions as the military started to evacuate people trapped on the shore further south.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Firefighters make gains against wildfire in Southern California farm region

LOS ANGELES - Firefighters began to get the upper hand on a destructive wildfire in a Southern California farming region on Saturday, taking advantage of lighter winds as authorities let some evacuated residents return home.

The Maria fire erupted on Thursday near the community of Santa Paula, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and it has since charred 9,400 acres (3,800 hectares) of dry brush and chaparral, officials said.

Firefighters have scrambled to protect tens of millions of dollars worth of citrus and avocado crops in harm's way, as well as oil industry infrastructure.

The blaze, which was 20 percent contained on Saturday, is the most pressing emergency facing California firefighters, with several other blazes in the state largely contained.

More than 10,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the blaze.

But authorities allowed people in two residential areas to return home on Saturday and they had plans to further lift evacuation orders, said Ventura County Fire Captain Brian McGrath.

"We're taking advantage of the good weather we have right now," McGrath said by phone.

The fire has destroyed three structures but not caused any injuries, he said.

Southern California Edison has told state authorities that 13 minutes before the fire started, it began to re-energize a circuit near where flames first erupted, said a spokesman for the utility, Ron Gales.

Southern California Edison had shut off power in the area because of concerns that an electrical mishap could spark a wildfire. The utility and fire officials have said the cause of the blaze is still under investigation.

On Friday evening, moist breezes from the Pacific Ocean aided firefighters battling the Maria Fire.

By Saturday morning conditions were dry again, although winds were relatively weak, said National Weather Service meteorologist Lisa Phillips.

The Maria Fire erupted after fierce Santa Ana desert gusts howled across much of Southern California. Santa Ana winds and similar gusts in Northern California have intensified a number of wildfires in the state this fall.

The state's largest blaze, the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, was 72 percent contained on Saturday after burning nearly 80,000 acres and destroying more than 370 structures since it started on Oct. 23, officials said. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Firefighters battle Kincade blaze in California

Authorities are struggling to fully contain the massive Kincade fire in the American state of California more than a week after it was ignited. ABS-CBN North America bureau chief TJ Manotoc walks us through the latest on one of California's worst wildfires.—ANC Top Story, Thursday, 31 October, 2019

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Millions without power in California after wildfire

A firefighter battling the Kincade fire attempts to extinguish a hot spot as strong winds send embers flying in Calistoga, California, on Tuesday. Millions of people have been without power for days as fire crews raced to contain two major wind-whipped blazes that have destroyed dozens of homes at both ends of the state: in Sonoma County wine country and in the hills of Los Angeles. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

LeBron James, celebrities flee multimillion-dollar homes in Los Angeles wildfire

LOS ANGELES - A fast-moving wildfire on Monday destroyed at least 5 multimillion-dollar homes in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and forced celebrities to flee in the middle of the night.

Among neighborhoods under evacuation orders was the posh area of Brentwood, a section on the west side of the city that became world famous in 1994 when former football star O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife and a waiter there.

Today Brentwood is home to basketball superstar LeBron James, A-list Hollywood actors, wealthy producers and media company executives.

James, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, said he and his family had to drive around in the early morning hours looking for a place to stay after fleeing the home he shares with his wife and three children.

"Had to emergency evacuate my house and I’ve been driving around with my family trying to get rooms," James wrote on Twitter around 4 a.m. He later added that he found a place to take them in. "Crazy night man!" he said.

James bought a $23 million, 8-bedroom home in Brentwood in late 2017, according to media reports.

On the northern edge of Brentwood, a cluster of several multimillion-dollar homes were reduced to smoldering debris along a street festooned with Halloween decorations.

A fake bloody arm, part of the holiday decorations, had turned into melted plastic at one dwelling, and a giant skull replica remained in the front of another. Heavy smoke and ash filled the air as water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers buzzed overhead.

DARK FATE

Actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also said he was among the thousands who had to evacuate overnight.

"If you are in an evacuation zone, don’t screw around. Get out," Schwarzenegger wrote on Twitter.

A red-carpet premiere for Schwarzenegger's new movie, "Terminator: Dark Fate," that had been scheduled for Monday night was canceled due to fires in the area.

The "Terminator" premiere had been scheduled to take place in Hollywood, several miles from the fire zone. Food intended for the premiere party was being donated to local American Red Cross shelters that were housing fire evacuees, Paramount Pictures said.

"Agents of SHIELD" actor Clark Gregg and "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter also said on Twitter that they had been forced to leave their homes.

The streets of Brentwood became familiar to TV viewers when Simpson stood trial on charges of stabbing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman. Prosecutors alleged Simpson killed the pair at her Brentwood home and then fled to his nearby mansion.

Simpson was acquitted of murder but later found liable for the deaths in a civil case. He told the Associated Press in June he now lives in Las Vegas.

Monday's fire erupted in the hills above where Simpson had lived and was near the Getty Center, a museum for the art collection of late oil magnate J. Paul Getty that includes works by Rembrandt and Van Gogh, according to the museum's website.

The Getty fire has forced schools to close in several areas, including the public school district encompassing Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades and the University of California Los Angles (UCLA).

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fil-Am family loses home to Tick Fire in California

SANTA CLARITA, California – Filipinos were among the thousands of residents affected by the wind-driven Tick Fire that broke out close to neighborhoods here. 

ABS-CBN News learned that among structures completely destroyed was the home of a Filipino-American family of 4.

The brother of Ryan Pallos of Santa Clarita said that he and his family are shaken up after watching their two-story home completely burn down on television.

The family took pictures of the raging flames in a nearby canyon shortly before they evacuated early Thursday evening.

By early Friday morning, they saw flames engulfing their home on TV.

Several Filipino families are said to live in the same neighborhood as the Pallos family and despite the dire situation, only a couple of the houses reportedly caught fire.

Evacuation centers have opened up, freeways have been shut down, and train services halted as firefighters rushed to save lives and homes.

By Friday morning, firefighters made some progress overnight but worry that the winds, which have fanned the flames, will pick up during the day.

Air quality has also suffered in the region as a result of the fire, and residents in the region have been advised to stay indoors.

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Read more on Balitang America: 

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Wildfire roars through California wine country

A fast-moving wildfire roared through California wine country early Thursday, as authorities warned of the imminent danger of more fires across much of the Golden State.

The Kincade fire in Sonoma County kicked up Wednesday night, quickly growing from a blaze of a few hundred acres into an uncontained 10,000-acre (4,000-hectare) inferno, California fire and law enforcement officials said.

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the town of Geyserville, California, the county sheriff's office said.

High winds out of the north were driving the fire south as firefighters worked through the night to evacuate residents and protect structures.

"This fire is moving fast, please pay attention to evacuation orders," state Senator Mike McGuire said on his Twitter account.

The Kincade fire came amid official warnings that much of northern California and parts of the south were under imminent threat of fires into Friday because of blustery, dry weather.

Citing strong Santa Ana winds, San Diego County warned residents of potential power shutoffs for tens of thousands of customers to reduce the risk of accidental fires.

San Diego Gas & Electric notified 42,000 customers that power shutoffs were possible.

Several fires were burning in the Los Angeles area, and at least one fire near Pendleton, California in San Diego County.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tens of thousands evacuated as California wildfires spread

LOS ANGELES, United States —Much of California was on high alert Friday as wind-driven wildfires tore through the state's south, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and destroying multiple structures and homes.

News reports said an 89-year-old woman died in Calimesa, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, when fire swept through a mobile home park overnight after the driver of a garbage truck that caught fire dumped his burning load nearby.

Another man in his 50s died Thursday night from cardiac arrest as he spoke with firefighters battling the so-called Saddleridge brush fire in the San Fernando Valley, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles, fire officials said.

The fire grew from 60 acres to 4,700 acres overnight, prompting evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people in the area.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas said the blaze was being fuelled by dry conditions and high winds known as the Santa Ana winds.

"Do not wait to leave. If we ask you to evacuate, please evacuate," he urged residents.

He said some 1,000 firefighters were fighting the blaze that was zero percent contained in early morning and which forced the partial shutdown of several major highways. The metro line in the area was also shut down.

"We've calculated that the fire is moving at a rate of 800 acres per hour," Terrazas said, adding that it would probably take days to get it under control.

Some 200 firefighters and helicopters were meanwhile battling the brush fire -- dubbed the Sandlewood fire -- that tore through the mobile home park.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, but authorities ordered some 1,900 homes in the area be evacuated.

The Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter it had declared a "citywide tactical alert."

Evacuation centers are open for those forced to leave their homes, said LA mayor Eric Garcetti.

IN THE DARK

Weather forecasters have warned of more strong winds and "extremely critical fire" conditions Friday and state authorities have issued their highest fire alert -- a red flag warning.

The wildfires erupted as California's largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), implemented rolling power blackouts that affected some 2 million people in Northern California this week.

About 312,000 customers remained in the dark Friday as a result of the shutoffs designed to reduce the threat of wildfire that can be sparked by lines downed in heavy winds.

Many schools and universities were also closed in northern parts of the state as people stocked up on gasoline, water, batteries and other basics, with frustration mounting at the blackouts condemned by some as "third world."

"We're seeing a scale and scope of something that no state in the 21st century should experience," Governor Gavin Newsom said Thursday, blaming decades of what he called neglect and mismanagement by PG&E.

"This is not, from my perspective, a climate change story as much as a story about greed and mismanagement over the course of decades," Newsom said. "Neglect, a desire to advance not public safety but profits."

PG&E has defended the outages as necessary for safety reasons and has said it will take days before power is restored to all customers as inspections must be conducted on power lines in all of the affected areas.

"This is not how we want to serve you but blackouts can happen again," Bill Johnson, the CEO of the company said Thursday.

Last November, PG&E's faulty power lines were determined to have sparked the deadliest wildfire in the state's modern history, which killed 86 and destroyed the town of Paradise.

FIL-AMS

Filipina Girlie Collado and her family had to evacuate their Northridge home Thursday night.

"We all kind of feel helpless. There’s nothing much else we can do but we feel fortunate that we are safe and we are with family... So we’re counting our blessings," she said.

Joe Arciaga, who lives a couple of miles from the fire line, said he and his family have been on full alert—ready for whatever may happen.

"It was hard to sleep last night because of all the fire trucks and police cars going up and down the street where I live," he said.

"The air is pretty acrid right now. This is a reality for us Filipino-Americans here living in the San Fernando Valley… Santa Clarita Valley."—With a report from Henni Espinosa, ABS-CBN North America

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Indonesia arrests nearly 200 over raging forest fires

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has arrested nearly 200 people over vast forest fires ripping across the archipelago, police said Monday, as toxic haze sends air quality levels plummeting and sparks flight cancellations.

Jakarta has deployed thousands of personnel to battle blazes that are turning land into charred landscapes and consuming forests in Sumatra and Borneo islands, where thousands of schools have been shut over health fears.

The fires -- usually started by illegal burning to clear land for farming -- have unleashed choking haze across Southeast Asia, triggering diplomatic tensions with Indonesia's neighbors.

On Monday, authorities said they had arrested some 185 people suspected of being involved in activities that led to out-of-control fires sweeping the country.

"Indonesian Police will enforce the law against anyone who is proven to have carried out forest and land burning, whether it was done intentionally or through negligence," National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told reporters in Jakarta.

"This is a last resort. The most important thing is prevention."

Four corporations were also being investigated, he added.

Last week, Indonesia sealed off dozens of plantations where smog-belching fires were blazing, and warned that owners -- including Malaysia and Singapore-based firms -- could face criminal charges if there was evidence of illegal burning.

Some of the most serious fires occur in peatlands, which are highly combustible when drained of water to be converted into agricultural plantations.

Thick haze in Borneo -- where air quality levels have plummeted to "dangerous" levels in some areas -- caused the cancellation of about a dozen flights Sunday, national airline Garuda said.

Rival Lion Air said about 160 Borneo flights had been affected at the weekend.

Meanwhile, nearly 150,000 people have been treated for acute respiratory infections linked to the haze in recent months, according to Indonesian health authorities.

While forest fires are an annual problem, the situation this year has been worsened by drier weather in Indonesia, with diplomatic tensions soaring as toxic smog drifts over to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

The haze pushed Singapore's air quality to unhealthy levels for the first time in three years at the weekend.

In 2015, Indonesia suffered its worst forest fires for almost two decades, which dramatically increased its greenhouse gas emissions.

Huge fires tearing through the Amazon are also compounding concerns about the long-term impact of such blazes on keeping global temperature levels stable.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Homes, college evacuated as wildfire erupts in Northern California

A fast-moving wildfire that broke out on Thursday on the outskirts of a National Forest in Northern California has prompted the evacuation of a community college, a major highway and some residents, officials said.

The Mountain Fire, which erupted about noon PDT just north of the town of Bella Vista in Shasta County, had raced across some 600 acres (240 hectares) within a few hours, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said on its incident website.

Photos of the blaze posted on Twitter by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office showed thick black and gray smoke billowing into the area over a highway near the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. There was no containment of the flames.

"Jones Valley and Bella Vista area residents! This situation is very fluid and rapidly changing, if you do not see your road listed but feel you are in danger YOU MAY EVACUATE to Shasta College Gymnasium," the sheriff's department said in a separate tweet.

The Shasta College campus was closed along with Highway 299 and about a dozen smaller roads. Residents of small communities in the path of the flames were told to evacuate or be prepared to flee on short notice.

California was hit by some of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in a century last year and state officials have warned this year's fire season could be similarly intense.

The Camp Fire, which broke out in Butte County in November and overran the town of Paradise, killed 89 people and left thousands of others homeless. State fire investigators determined that the Camp Fire was sparked by Pacific Gas & Electric Co transmission lines.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

The sky never goes dark while the Amazon burns

HUMAITA, BRAZIL - There are no lights in sight but the night sky glows a dusky yellow, for the Amazon, is burning.

The smell is of barbecue, of wood charcoal up in flames. During the day the sun, usually so fierce in these parts, is obscured by thick gray smoke.

For the last seven days, Reuters has repeatedly driven a 30-kilometer stretch from Humaita towards Labrea along the Trans-Amazonian highway, watching a fire eat its way through the jungle.

At first, on Wednesday of last week, the raging fire stood just a few yards (meters) off the roadway, the yellow flames engulfing trees and lighting up the sky. By the weekend the fire had receded into the distance but cast an orange glow several stories high.

The fire is just one of thousands currently decimating the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest and a bulwark against climate change.

Wildfires have surged 83% so far this year when compared to the same period in 2018, according to Brazil's space research agency INPE.

The government agency has registered 72,843 fires, the highest number since records began in 2013. More than 9,500 have been spotted by satellites since last Thursday alone.

On Wednesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro enraged environmentalists by making unfounded claims that non-governmental organizations were starting the fires out of anger after he cut their funding.

Global outrage has torn through social media, with #PrayforAmazonas the world's top trending topic on Twitter on Wednesday.

Reuters observed plumes of smoke billowing from the forest, reaching hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) into the air, during a weeklong trip to southern Amazonas and northern Rondonia states.

"All you can see is smoke," said Thiago Parintintin, who lives in an indigenous reserve just off the Trans-Amazonian highway, pointing to the horizon.

A yellow truck bearing the logo of Brazil's forest firefighters had just rushed past.

"It didn't use to be like this," Parintintin added.

A 22-year-old trained indigenous environmental agent, Parintintin blames the increasing development of the Amazon for bringing agriculture and deforestation, resulting in rising temperatures during the dry season.

Fires start in the underbrush that has been drying over the dry season. Smoke envelopes still lush patches of fronds and palm trees, as the understory smolders before the upper tiers of vegetation catch fire.

Environmentalists also say farmers set the forest alight to clear land for cattle grazing.

The smoke from the resulting fires hangs at the horizon like a fog.

Gabriel Albuquerque, a pilot in Rondonia state's capital city of Porto Velho, said that in four years of flying his small propeller plane it has never been this bad.

"It is the first time that I've ever seen it like this," he said, as he prepared to go up.

From the sky, the fires ranged from small pockets to those bigger than a football field, with the smoke making it impossible to see behind the front line of flames to discern the full extent of the blaze.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Death toll in California fire rises to 87

LOS ANGELES, California - The death toll in northern California's so-called "Camp Fire" rose to 87, officials said late Saturday, adding that the blaze was almost fully under control.

Cal Fire, the state fire authority, said in its latest bulletin that the fire - which broke out on November 8 - was 98 percent contained.

The office of the Butte County Sheriff said that 249 people remained unaccounted for - a steep drop from 474 missing reported earlier in the day. 

It added that only 54 of the fatalities have been identified.

More than 153,000 acres have been torched, with nearly 14,000 homes and hundreds of other structures destroyed by the powerful blaze, California's deadliest and most destructive fire ever.

Previously the death toll had been put at 84. 

Rain that soaked the Butte County fire area in the past days helped douse the remaining flames, but also made it more difficult for crews searching for bodies.

"Areas experiencing significant rainfall following a wildfire are at risk for debris flow and flash flooding," the Sheriff's office warned.

Cal Fire said that the remaining uncontained fire "is isolated in steep and rugged terrain where it is unsafe for firefighters to access due to the heavy rains."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Kim, Kanye donate $500,000 to California wildfire relief efforts

LOS ANGELES - Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on Wednesday donated $500,000 to firefighters and victims of a massive Southern California wildfire that came close to destroying the celebrity couple's own multimillion-dollar mansion.

Kardashian, appearing on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," said she and West hired private firefighters to protect their home and others in their neighborhood in rural Calabasas, north of Los Angeles.

Kardashian, West, and their 3 children were among thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes during the 93,000-acre (37,635-hectare) Woolsey fire 2 weeks ago that spread into coastal Malibu, destroying 1,500 buildings and killing 3 people.

Kardashian, a businesswoman and star of reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," said the flames "got to our gate. We are still not in our home now. The smoke, the smell is too intense."

She said the couple felt blessed at being able to hire private firefighters.

"Our house is right on the end of a big park," she said. "We were able to get private firefighters... and they saved our home and saved our neighborhood. I had them make sure they controlled every house on the edge, so it wasn't just our home."

Kardashian, West, and the rapper's fashion company Yeezy and sportswear company Adidas, which makes his sneakers, donated $400,000 to victims of the fire and to California firefighters.

They also donated a further $100,000 to firefighter Michael Williams, who fought the blaze in his neighborhood after narrowly escaping from his own burning home.

The Woolsey fire is now 93 percent contained. A separate fire in northern California destroyed more than 12,000 homes and businesses in the town of Paradise and killed 81 people. Another 700 are still unaccounted for almost 2 weeks after the blaze swept through the town, beginning on Nov. 8.

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Californians left homeless by wildfire brace for heavy rain and mud

CHICO, California - Northern California residents left homeless by the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in state history braced for a new bout of misery on Tuesday from showers expected to plunge encampments of evacuees into rain-soaked fields of mud.

The impending Pacific storm was also certain to hinder search teams sifting through ash and rubble for remains of additional victims in a disaster that already has claimed at least 81 lives and left hundreds more missing.

As much as 6 inches (15 cm) of rain was expected to fall over several days starting early on Wednesday around the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people, many of them retirees, that was largely obliterated by the Camp Fire.

Forecasters said there was a slight risk of rains unleashing rivers of mud and debris down flame-scorched slopes stripped of vegetation by the blaze, which has burned across 151,000 acres (61,107 hectares) of the Sierra foothills north of San Francisco.

But because of mass evacuations still in effect since the fire erupted on Nov. 8, few if any people were believed to be in harm's way should any debris flows materialize, according to National Weather Service (NWS) hydrologist Cindy Matthews.

She also said due to the volcanic soil and relatively shallow slopes found in the fire zone, the ground is unlikely to become saturated enough for hillsides to give way to landslides that can occur in newly burned areas after heavy rains.

However, authorities in Southern California warned residents in areas burned by a pair of recent large wildfires in the coastal foothills and mountains northwest of Los Angeles to be wary of mud-flow hazards from the same storm this week. One of those blazes, the Woolsey Fire, killed 3 people.

While the showers will prove a boon to firefighters still laboring to suppress the flames, the storm will heighten the discomfort factor for many displaced residents who are essentially camping rather than staying in emergency shelters.

"There are people still living in tents," Sacramento-based NWS meteorologist Eric Kurth said in a telephone interview. "That's certainly not going to be pleasant with the rain, and we might get some wind gusting up to 40 to 45 miles per hour (64 to 72 km per hour)."

'MUD CITY'

One of those evacuees, Kelly Boyer, lost his home in Paradise and was sharing a tent with a friend at an encampment outside a Walmart store in nearby Chico, where overnight low temperatures have fallen to just above freezing.

Boyer said he was grateful for wooden pallets and plastic tarps donated by local residents to evacuees to help keep their tents off the ground and dry when the rains come, though he said the showers would still make a mess.

"It's going to be mud city," he told Reuters.

The rains, however, will help dispel heavy smoke that has lingered in the air.

"We're really expecting the air quality to improve. That's the bright side for those people up there," he said.

Meanwhile, smoke from the recent California wildfires has drifted across the country to the East Coast, where it was widely noticed in the form of a brownish, orange haze in the sky and was credited with unusually vibrant sunsets on Monday.

"So if you thought it was just a bit hazy this afternoon, we have a California smoke plume moving through," retired NWS meteorologist Gary Szatkowski, who continues to track weather phenomenon from his home in New Jersey, wrote on Twitter.

Most of the transcontinental smoke plume, illustrated on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map he posted on Twitter, was "a couple of miles up" in the atmosphere, high enough to be carried east by the jet stream.

The Camp Fire incinerated some 13,000 homes in and around Paradise, mostly during the first night of the blaze when gale-force winds drove flames through drought-parched scrub and trees into the town with little warning, forcing residents to flee for their lives.

The Butte County Sheriff's Office has tentatively identified 64 of the 79 victims whose remains have so far been recovered.

Meanwhile, the missing-persons list compiled by the sheriff's office was revised downward to 699 names on Tuesday, from a high of more than 1,200 over the weekend.

The number has fluctuated dramatically over the past week as more individuals were reported missing or as some initially listed as unaccounted for either turned up alive or were confirmed dead.

Buffer lines have been carved around 75 percent of the fire's perimeter and full containment is expected by the end of the month, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The number of residents needing temporary shelter was unclear but as many as 52,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the firestorm last week.

The cause of the Camp and Woolsey fires are under investigation but electric utilities reported localized equipment problems around the time both blazes broke out.

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Number of missing in California fire jumps past 600

PARADISE, California - The number of people listed as missing in one of California's deadliest wildfires has skyrocketed past 600, authorities said Thursday, as the remains of seven additional victims were found by rescuers.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the number of missing had more than doubled during the day to 631 as investigators went back and checked emergency calls made when the fire broke out a week ago.

"I want you to understand that the chaos we were dealing with was extraordinary" when the fire started, he told journalists, in explaining the staggering new number.

The seven additional victims brings to 63 the number of people who have died in the so-called Camp Fire in northern California.

At least three other people have died in southern California in another blaze dubbed the Woolsey Fire.

President Donald Trump is set to visit California on Saturday to meet with victims of the wildfires believed to be the worst in the state's history.

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At least 56 killed, 130 missing in California's deadliest wildfire

PARADISE, California - National Guard troops joined the grim search on Wednesday for more victims in the ruins of an incinerated northern California town while the death toll climbed to 56 in the most deadly and destructive wildfire in the state's history.

The latest fatality count was announced as authorities released a revised list of 130 people reported missing by loved ones after flames largely obliterated the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, last Thursday.

The majority on the list were over the age of 65. Nearly 230 people were initially reported as missing in the killer blaze, dubbed the Camp Fire. Most of those who remain unaccounted for are from Paradise, once home to 27,000 people.

More than 8,900 homes and other buildings burned to the ground in and around Paradise, and an estimated 50,000 people remained under evacuation orders in the area.

Adding to the misery of some survivors was an outbreak of norovirus, a highly contagious gastrointestinal illness, at a shelter housing about 200 evacuees in the nearby city of Chico.

Public health agency spokeswoman Lisa Almaguer said at least 20 people may have caught the virus.

The footprint of the 6-day-old fire grew to 135,000 acres (55,000 hectares) as of Wednesday, even as diminished winds and rising humidity helped firefighters shore up containment lines around more than a third of the perimeter.

Still, the ghostly expanse of empty lots covered in ash and strewn with twisted wreckage and debris made a strong impression on Governor Jerry Brown, US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and other officials who toured the devastation on Wednesday.

"This is one of the worst disasters I've seen in my career, hands down," Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters in Chico.

"It looks like a war zone. It is a war zone," Brown said.

NO FINGER POINTING

After visiting some of California's earlier wildfire zones in August, Zinke blamed "gross mismanagement of forests" because of timber harvest restrictions that he said were supported by "environmental terrorist groups."

But pressed by reporters on Wednesday, Zinke demurred. "Now is really not the time to point fingers," he said. "It is a time for America to stand together."

The blaze, fueled by thick, drought-desiccated scrub, has capped 2 back-to-back catastrophic wildfire seasons in California that scientists largely attribute to prolonged drought they say is symptomatic of climate change.

Lawyers for some of the victims claimed in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that lax equipment maintenance by an electric utility was the proximate cause of the fire, which officially remains under investigation.

The Butte County disaster coincided with a flurry of blazes in Southern California, most notably the Woolsey Fire, which has killed at least 2 people, destroyed more than 500 structures and displaced about 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near the Malibu coast west of Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said the body of a possible third victim was found there in a burned-out dwelling. Cal Fire officials said that blaze was 52 percent contained as of Wednesday night.

In Butte County, the search for more human remains kicked into high gear as a National Guard contingent of 50 military police officers joined dozens of search-and-recovery workers and at least 22 cadaver dogs, Sheriff Kory Honea said.

The remains of 8 more fire victims were found on Wednesday, raising the official number of fatalities to 56 - far exceeding the previous record from a single wildfire in California history - 29 people killed by the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles in 1933.

The Camp Fire also stands as 1 of the deadliest US wildfires since the turn of the last century. More than 80 people perished in the Big Burn firestorm that swept the Northern Rockies in August of 1910.

TRACKING THE MISSING

Butte County Sheriff's spokeswoman Megan McMann said the list of 130 missing would fluctuate from day to day as more names are added and others are removed, either because they turn up safe or end up identified among the dead.

Sheriff Honea invited relatives of the missing to provide DNA samples to compare against samples taken from newly recovered remains in hopes of speeding up identification of the dead. But he acknowledged it was possible some of the missing might never be found.

Authorities attributed the magnitude of casualties to the staggering speed with which the fire struck Paradise. Wind-driven flames roared through town so swiftly that residents were forced to flee for their lives. Some victims were found in or around the burned-out wreckage of their vehicles.

Anna Dise, a resident of Butte Creek Canyon west of Paradise, told KRCR TV her father, Gordon Dise, 66, died when he ran back inside to gather belongings and their house collapsed on him.

Dise said she could not flee in her car because the tires had melted. To survive, she hid overnight in a neighbor's pond with her dogs.

"It was so fast," Dise recounted of the fire. "I didn't expect it to move so fast."

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Northern California wildfire kills 42 to rank as deadliest in state history

PARADISE, California - Search teams have recovered the remains of at least 42 people killed by a devastating wildfire that largely incinerated the town of Paradise in northern California, making it the deadliest single wildland blaze in state history, authorities said on Monday.

The latest death toll, up from 29 tallied over the weekend, was announced by Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea at an evening news conference in the nearby city of Chico after authorities located the remains of 13 additional victims from a blaze dubbed the Camp Fire.

That fire already ranked as the most destructive on record in California, having leveled more than 7,100 homes and other buildings since it erupted on Thursday in the Sierra foothills of Butte County, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco.

Honea said the number of people listed as missing in the disaster remained officially at 228, but added that his office had received more than 1,500 requests for "welfare checks" from people concerned about the fate of their loved ones. He said his office had managed to confirm the safety of the individuals in question in 231 of those cases so far.

More than 15,000 more structures remained listed as threatened on Monday in an area so thick with smoke that visibility was reduced in some places to less than half a mile.

The bulk of the destruction and loss of life occurred in and around the town of Paradise, where flames reduced most of the buildings to ash and charred rubble on Thursday night, just hours after the blaze erupted.

The 42 confirmed fatalities marks the largest loss of life ever from a single wildland fire in California, Honea said. It also far surpasses the all-time record number of deaths from a California wildfire - 29 in 1933 from the Griffith Park blaze in Los Angeles.

Authorities reported two more people perished over the weekend in a separate blaze, dubbed the Woolsey Fire, that has destroyed 370 structures and displaced some 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near Southern California's Malibu coast, west of Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump on Monday approved a major disaster declaration for California at the request of Governor Jerry Brown, hastening the availability of federal emergency assistance to fire-stricken regions of the state.

The fires have spread with an erratic intensity that has strained resources and kept firefighters struggling to keep up with the flames while catching many residents by surprise.

The remains of some of the Camp Fire victims were found in burned-out vehicles that were overrun by walls of fire as evacuees tried to flee by car in panic, only to be trapped in deadly knots of traffic gridlock on Thursday night.

"It was very scary," Mayor Jody Jones recounted of her family's own harrowing escape from their home as fire raged all around them.

"It took a long time to get out. There was fire on both sides of the car. You could feel the heat coming in through the car," she told CNN. Jones said her family is now living in their mobile home parked in a vacant lot.

Honea said authorities have brought in 13 special search-and-recovery teams to seek out any further victims from the Camp Fire, and have requested additional cadaver-dog crews to assist in the search for human remains.

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