Free Republic

Losses have been described as “significant”; from her limited point of view, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith estimated the extent of the damage to be a potential 30 to 50 per cent, but the official toll will come from Parks Canada. And though the fire blew in from Alberta’s forest protection zone, Jasper National Park is the responsibility of the federal government. Thus it’s Ottawa that’s in charge of the park’s forest management and, crucially, fire mitigation ... Warnings of a mega-fire have rumbled for years in Jasper. Preventing fires has been the priority for many of the years since the...

Climate experts are apparently backing President Donald Trump’s repeated arguments that California’s wildfires were a result of poor land management rather than climate change, E&E reported Thursday. Roughly 75% of damage stemming from California’s wildfires was a result of “the way we manage lands and develop our landscape,” Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley, said Wednesday at a conference in Washington. Wildfires used to burn through 4.5 million acres a year in the 18th century, when indigenous communities populated California’s countryside, Stephens noted. “Fire was almost as important as rain to ecosystems,” he...

As FEMA and other government agencies prepare for what is now being called the worst oil spill disaster in history, plans to evacuate the Tampa Bay area are in place. The plans would be announced in the event of a controlled burn of surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico, or if wind or other conditions are expected to take toxic fumes through Tampa Bay. This practice has been used by the US Forestry service, when fire and smoke threaten the health and well being of people. The elderly and those with respiratory problems would be more susceptible to health...

Bushfire expert David Packham at Melbourne's Monash University has blamed green groups, saying their opposition to controlled clearance in forests known as burn-offs had allowed leaves, bark and dead wood to build up for decades, providing fuel for the fires.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Repeats of this year's massive wildfires will occur unless the government steps up thinning in forests, a top Forest Service official told Congress on Thursday.</p> <p>"We'll never be able to stop every fire every time, but we can reduce the risk and severity of these fires," said Sally Collins, associate chief of the Forest Service.</p>