#fire-weather-concerns

#fire-weather-concerns

Research from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety consistently identifies wind-borne embers, firebrands carried well ahead of the fire front, as a dominant cause of residential structure loss in wildfires.

The Trump Administration's sweeping changes to the Forest Service, which operates under the Department of Agriculture, represent a gutting of an agency that has been a stable fact of life for over a century.

Not only will temperatures break March monthly records, but this heatwave will even break April records. Over the next week, around 800 high temperature records are forecast to be neared, tied or broken at 165 locations in Western and Central states - some by more than 10 degrees - with unusual warmth set to linger into late March.

Victoria's Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said firefighters were battling around 30 active blazes as the state's fire danger rating hit the highest "catastrophic" level. Temperatures were forecast to reach 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit), with damaging winds expected to make conditions "undefendable" in some areas, authorities said. Dozens of communities have been evacuated and many parks and campgrounds closed as the fires continue to spread. "If you don't leave now, it could result in your life being lost," Wiebusch said.

Air quality meters from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sounded the alarm Tuesday morning, showing unsafe conditions in both Daytona Beach, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. Live tracking data captured sharply elevated levels of PM2.5, microscopic particles composed of toxic compounds or heavy metals that are small enough to penetrate the lungs, inflame the respiratory system, and even contribute to heart attacks.

One year ago, Nancy Ward, then the director of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spearhead the cleanup of toxic ash and fire debris cloaking more than 12,000 homes across Los Angeles County. Although Ward's decision ensured the federal government would assume the bulk of disaster costs, it came with a major trade off.

Yes, I would say it is, That's a fair thing to say.