Wildfires in dry Amazon rainforest choke Manaus city
Manaus, BrazilReuters Clouds of dense gray smoke from dozens of wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon, many of them illegally started, have hung over the region’s capital city Manaus, making the air increasingly unbreathable. Residents complain of stinging noses and throats. Journalist Indiara Bessa looks out from her apartment as smoke from wildfires in the Amazon […]
Scorched Europe battles deadly fires, Turkey shuts shipping lane
Athens, Greece/Asagiokcular Reuters Searing temperatures fuelled wildfires and prompted health warnings across Europe on Wednesday, as a blaze in Turkey forced the closure of the Dardanelles shipping lane and winds fanned the flames in Greece where 20 people have already been killed. France, which widened its heatwave red alert in the south of the country, […]
Record-setting Canadian wildfires could persist for rest of “marathon” summer
Ottawa, CanadaReuters Record-setting wildfires in Canada could potentially continue burning at an abnormally high rate for several more weeks, though the spread of blazes is likely to start diminishing in September, according to federal projections released on Friday. Forest fires have engulfed parts of nearly all 13 Canadian provinces and territories this year, forcing home […]
In wake of disasters, Chile animal shelter offers hope to wildlife
Santiago, ChileReuters In the misty forests just outside of Chile’s capital Santiago, a rescued puma stalks the leafy surroundings of the Refugio Animal Cascada, a shelter hoping to rehabilitate and house wildlife affected by the country’s natural disasters. The shelter, first opened two decades ago, has seen a host of new residents this year following […]
Four dead in Chile as fires blaze through area south of capital
Santiago, Chile Reuters Dozens of raging wildfires in Chile claimed at least four lives while torching some 14,000 hectares, authorities reported on Friday, as a summer heat wave engulfs a large swath of the South American country. The deaths occurred in the town of Santa Juana in Biobio, a region some 500 kilometres south of […]
Climate impacts: US east coast faces “competing catastrophies” as fire risk grows
DAVID SHERFINSKI, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on the rising climate change-fuelled threats facing communities on the US east coast…
EU plans to build firefighting fleet faster after summer of climate crises
Brussels, BelgiumReuters The European Union and its member states agreed on Monday to speed up plans to establish an EU fleet of firefighting aircraft, after rampaging wildfires across Europe this summer exhausted the bloc’s capacity to respond. This summer’s wildfires forced thousands of Europeans to evacuate, and razed homes and businesses, part of a worsening […]
Brazil’s Amazon sees worst August fires in over a decade
Sao Paulo, BrazilReuters Fires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest surged in August to the highest for the month since 2010, government data showed on Wednesday, surpassing the blazes in August 2019 that drew global attention soon after President Jair Bolsonaro took office. National space research agency INPE registered 31,513 fire alerts in the Amazon via satellite […]
Greece’s fire-ravaged island now racing to build flood defences
Limni, GreeceReuters In a scorched landscape on the Greek island of Evia, crews of workers chop burnt pine trees, all that’s left from devastating summer wildfires, to set up wooden flood barriers. Walking on a thick carpet of ash and with the smell of smoke still lingering, they are racing against time to bolster defences […]
Amazon fires surge anew in Brazil as cleared forest burns
Labrea/Brasilia, BrazilReuters Thick smoke billowed above Brazil’s Amazon jungle as fire tore through butchered rainforest and discarded trees littered the scorched earth like dead matchsticks, burnt and black. A Reuters witness saw vast burned and clear cut areas on Wednesday and Thursday, as the arc of deforestation advanced deeper into the jungle by the frontier […]