Friday Fun: Firefighting Helicopters Working a German Wildfire

Direct link to video from HD1080ide on YouTube

Enjoy this video of helicopters including three Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters and other helicopters working a wildfire in Germany. Allow about nine and half minutes to watch the video. Enjoy.

Wildfires in Portugal

I became aware of the wildfires in Portugal a few days ago through Mike Archers Wildfire News of the Day newsletter and other newsfeeds. These wildfires are a reminder that wildfires are an international problem. Late last week that were as many as 100 wildfires burning about 37,000 acres in Portugal with at least three wildland firefighters perishing and four others who died in the fire. Many residences have been destroyed. Aerial resources from Portugal and surrounding countries are helping the wildland firefighters on the ground. France 24 has a nice 2 minute video report (dated on or about September 20th) covering the wildfires in Portugalat this France 24 site. I found a slightly different version of France 24's video report on the fire on YouTube which I am embedding below.

Direct link to video from France 24 on YouTube

For additional information see two reports from BBC News, a September 19th report with a short video of fire footage and an earlier September 17th report. Finally here is a September 19th report from  from NPR.

2024 Wildfire Season: Wildfire in Chile Feb 9th update

On February 5th I wrote about the wildfires in Chile, see my Feb 5th post, and I am writing to provide an update. I want to give a shout out to Mike Archer of Wildfire News of the Day for his February 8th WNOTD where he included the two articles about the wildfires in Chile that I am referring to in this post. But first, I know from the following post on Facebook recently shared by Coulson Aviation that Coulson continues to have a presence in Chile with at least one tanker deployed to Chile. According to Coulson's November 14th (2023) press release, one of their C-130's and crew plus a Citation 550 departed to serve in the Summer wildfire season in Chile. While I do not know for certain, I think it is logical to assume that Coulson's C-130 flew these recent wildfires in Coulson if conditions allowed.

A February 7th Barron's article on the Chile wildfires reported that

Firefighters said Wednesday they had extinguished all wildfires in Chile's coastal region of Valparaiso, where flames razed entire communities and left 131 dead.

The forest emergency that began on February 2 is considered to have been overcome,' said the fire department in the seaside resort town Vina del Mar, one of the worst-hit areas.

The Barron's article goes on to report that local officials say that something in the order of 15,000 homes have been impacted by these wildfires. I am not sure if Barrons has a paywall for this article, I was able to access this article.

The APNews has a nice photo spread of images of the Chile wildfires, see their February 7th article.

2024 Wildfire Season: Wildfire in Chile

Direct link to February 4th video from NBC News on YouTube

It is summer in Chile and a wildfire is burning during a hot and dry period leading to at somewhere in the order of 112 deaths. A state of emergency has been declared and damages could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars according to Chile's Chief Finance Minister Mario Marcel. See this Feb 5th report from CNN for more information, another video and photographs.

2023 Wildfire Season: Argentina Wildfire

As we are well into fall here in the mid-atlantic area of the United States with winter coming in two months, it is spring and will soon be summer in Argentina. While I was perusing the wildfire tab on my News App on my devices, I noted an October 11th story (with a video) from Sky News about a wildfire that has been burning in the Cordoba Province in Argentina (South America), go here to read the story and see the video

A man who started a campfire that grew out of control has been detained. There are evacuations in place. About 960 firefighters with the support of eight air tankers and two helicopters are working this wildfire. An unknown number of residences are affected. I do not know how many acres have been burned.

Direct link to video on YouTube from Mirror Now

2021 wildfire season: Chile, Valpariso region

Thanks in part to Mike Archers, Wildfire News of the Day Email Newsletter (subscribe here), I can read about wildfires occurring outside of the United States. I have recently been thinking of South America because I know that it is summer in that part of the world. As I have read summaries of wildfires in South America over the last few days, I knew that I wanted to do at least one blog post about a wildfire in South America. Ideally I wanted a video to share as well because I do believe that a video can be worth a thousand words, thanks to my friends at the NJ Forest Fire Service Section B10 who maintain a video of the week page, I found a nice short video dated on or about January 15th about a wildfire in the Valpraiso region of Chile, near Quilpue City. Thanks to Google Earth, and the information from the about page of the video that I will embed below I was able to save an image so you can get an idea of where the Valpraiso region is, on the west coast of Chile along with image showing most of Chile (Quilpue is the red marker).

Direct link to January 15th 2021 video from Global News News (with English subtitles)

Mike Archer included a summary with link to an article from dw dot com (in Chile??), the article is in Spanish. Unfortunately, I do not know Spanish but with the help of Google translate, I was able to get what I think are some pertinent facts about this wildfire in the Valparios region of Chile. The article in Spanish is dated January 16th and may be found here. I take responsibility for any errors in facts.

This summer Chile is experiencing the worst drought in six decades, so conditions are ripe for wildfires. The fire began as one of four starts on Thursday, January 14th occurring at about the same time. I believe that two of these fires were controlled by January 16th with the remaining two merging into one fire. As of January 16th, 4,200 hectares (approximately 10,378 acres) had burned. Evacuations orders affecting 25,000 residents were in place. At least six homes were destroyed. Last weekend 22 helicopters and 8 tankers were working the fire in support of wildland fire crews on the ground. 

I did an internet search prior to writing this article and so far, I do not have any current news of this fire so I can not provide an update. I am sorry. If I find any later news, I will provide an update here. I had originally embedded another longer video, that video is no longer available but I did find the shorter video that I embedded here.

A Little About the Wildfires in the Amazon

The wildfires that are currently burning in the Amazon have been making headlines in various news outlets so I expect that many of you reading this post know about these wildfires. I do want to spend a little time on these wildfires today. I don't know much about the actual size of the wildfires, nor can I say how many wildland firefighters on the ground and in the air are helping to fight these wildfires. But I do know that there is a lot of person power fighting these wildfires. Before going any further, I am not going to post any pictures because I understand, thanks to this post from Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today, that there are photos circulating claiming to be from the Amazon wildfires that are not of these wildfires.

 I do know that the Global Supertanker (747 tanker) is currently working in Boliva, flying the Amazon fires in that country, see this August 22nd post from Bill Gabbert's Wildfire Today for more information. Here are three tweets with short videosof the Supertanker working in Bolivia:

• Tweet #1 from Global Supertanker
• Tweet #2 from Global Supertanker
• Tweet #3 from ViVe TV (I learned of this tweet because of a retweet by Global Supertanker.

But there is some satellite imagery of these fires. Below is a satellite photo of the wildfires in Boliva, courtesy of Earth Observatory, for more information about this photo please go here where you can see an overlay with labels for the countries in South America. The image below, dated on or about August 27th, is an image from Landsat 8 courtesy of NASA's Earth Observatory

Instrument: Landsat 8 - OLI. Obtained on August 28, 2019 from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145522/fire-burns-in-paraguay-bolivia-and-brazil

The second satellite image is included in an August 21st article from NASA that may be found here.

2018 Wildfire Season in Europe: July 27th/28th

While wildfires continue to burn in the Western United States including but not limited to California (see my July 27th article), I want to write a follow-up on my July 25th article on wildfires currently or recently burning in Europe. I found some articles, hopefully all in English, about some of the wildfires burning in Europe. I will include them here for you so you may peruse or not at your leisure.

Europe in general

• BBC video, wildfires rage across Europe.
• BBC report and video, wildfires burn across Southern Europe
• European Union responds to wildfires in Europe (from DW)

Sweden

• From NATO on wildfires in Sweden
• Staying safe from wildfires in rural Sweden (from The Local SE)

Portugal

• BBC video report, drone footage of wildfires in Portugal
• BBC report and video: wildfire survivor in Portugal speaks

Italy: BBC report and video of wildfires in Sicily, Italy

Spain: BBC report and video of wildfires in Spain

Greece: CNN report, wildfires in Greece investigated for arson

2018 Wildfire season in Europe

I believe that I learned about the wildfires that are burning in Greece yesterday. These wildfires are the worst that Greece has seen in ten years. At least 60 are dead and 100 are injured. I understand that Greece has asked for help from the European Union. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today wrote about these wildfires in Greece on July 24th.


Direct link to BBC video on Youtube


Link to BBC video on Youtube

And it is not just Greece that is experiencing wildfires, Bill Gabbert reports on wildfires in Sweden on July 24th. There are also wildfires in Italy (see article 1, article 2, and article 3). Note these articles are in Italian and I had to use the translate feature on Google Chrome to get an English translation. There is also a wildfire burning in Cyprus, again I had to use the translate feature on Google Chrome to get an English translation. The links to articles about the wildfires in Italy and Cyprus are courtesy of Mike Archer's Wildfire News of the Day for July 24, 2018.

Winter Hill Fire Lancashire UK

I do my best to try to follow wildfires in other parts of the world. I came across a video from the United Kingdom recently, thanks to my friends at the B10 NJ Wildland Fire Page. The video shows footage of a wildfire known as the Winter Hill Moorland in Lancashire County England. I understand that Lancashire is in eastern England


Direct link to video from LancashireFire

I went looking for more information about the Winter Hill Moorland Fire and it did not take long for me to find the website of the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Squad. I found an update dated July 9, 2018, the fire is contained to an area of about 8 square kilometers or about 1,976 acres. I also found a video about from Lancashire Fire dated July 8, 2019. According to an article from the Independent (UK), there was an arrest made of a suspected arsonist.


Direct link to video from LancashireFire

SEATs and Gel Tech Solutions help with landfill fire in Bahamas

This morning I found myself on the Fletcher Flying Services Facebook page. Fletcher Flying Services is an Ag Aviation company out of Immokalee Florida. The top post on their page, which I have embedded below shows one or two of their SEATs loaded with FireIce from Gel Tech Solutions working a landfill fire in Jubilee Gardens in the Bahamas. The Bahamian Government had contracted with Gel Tech Solutions and Fletcher Flying Services (who provided two SEATs) in mid-March 2017 to help them put the lid on a smoky landfill fire that had lead to some evacuations of nearby residents. I started out with this video, and wanting to know a little more, I went through my folder where I save e-mails from Mike Archer's Wildfire News of the Day. Lo and behold, I found just what I was looking for in his March 14th Wildfire News of the Day edition.

Apparently, Matt Struzziero, Director of Sales and Strategic Operations for Gel Tech Solutions sent along this same video and a link to a March 14th article from the Nassau Guardian about the landfill fire at the New Providence Landfill in the Bahamas and providing information about the Bahamian Government's contract with Gel Tech Solutions and Fletcher Flying Services that I reference in the preceding paragraph. Gel Tech Solution's FireIce product was dropped on the fire. Note that before you can view Gel Tech's FireIce page, you have to agree to their FireIce Disclaimer which says in part about FireIce: "Attempting to emulate the demonstrations depicted on this website without proper supervision by trained firefighters and medical personnel could lead to serious injury or death."


Direct link to video (uploaded March 13, 2017)

Time for some helos fighting wildfires

Time for some more footage of helos working wildfires in support of the firefighters on the ground.

From New South Wales, Australia (uploaded Jan 26,2017)


Direct link to video

From South Africa, I think (uploaded January 6, 2017)


Direct link to video

From Kentucky (from November 2016)


Direct link to video

Satellite imagery of smoke from Chilean wildfires (Jan 27th)

The other day, I wrote about the wildfires currently burning in Chile, in particular referencing the great extensive coverage of Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today (see posts tagged Chile on Wildfire Today) and Fire Aviation (see posts tagged Chile on Fire Aviation). As I write this, I believe that Bill is still embedded with the crew Global Supertanker's 747, T-944.

Some of you may know that for the last couple of months I have been reading and learning about NOAA/NASA's satellites, mostly about the new GOES-16 (formerly GOES-R) that was launched on November 19, 2016. Recall that GOES-16 and the other geostationary operational environmental satellite orbit at an altitude of approximately 22,300 miles above the Earth, in a geostationary orbit.

NOAA/NASA has other satellites orbiting the Earth in addition to the GOES series, you may go to NOAA Satellites and Information Services "Currently Flying Page" for a brief introduction (and a great image) of these satellites. Today I am interested in one of the polar orbiting satellites, the Suomi NPP (Near Polar-Orbiting Partnership) satellite which I will get to in a minute. Unlike the satellites in the GOES series and other geostationary operational environmental satellites from other countries, the polar orbit satellites, orbit the Earth in a polar orbit at about 800 kilometers (or 500 miles above the Earth).

The Suomi NPP Satellite is a joint effort of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and an organization known as the NPOESS Integrated Program Office. It orbits the earth at an altitude of 833 km in a (near?) polar orbit (see the Suomi NPP status page for more information.  It is a part of the Joint Polar Satellite System, and has five instruments: VIIRS,  CrIS, ATMS, OMPS, and CERES FM5. For more information about these instruments, please go here (the information is complete but perhaps a little technical. For our purposes, I am interested in VIIRS or the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS).

Among the capabilities of VIIRS is its "multichannel imaging capabilities to support the acquisition of high resolution atmospheric imagery and generation of a variety of applied products including: visible and infrared imaging of hurricanes and detection of fires, smoke, and atmospheric aerosols" (obtained on February 3, 2017 from https://www.nsof.class.noaa.gov/data_available/npp/index.htm).

And it is the ability of VIIRS on the Suomi NPP to detect fires and smoke that leads me today's post. The image below was taking by the Suomi NPP over the west coast of Chile on January 27, 2017. You will the large smoke plume for that fire. Pretty cool, huh?

Obtained on February 3, 2017 from https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/imagery-and-data, their image of day for 2/1/17

And you will want to read this information from the Suomi NPP Facebook Page posted on February 1st



The links on this page were current on the date I wrote this article.

Wildfires in Chile - January 30th

I suspect that most of you know about the devastating  wildfires that continue to burn in Chile. I wrote on January 20th about the death of three Chilean wildland firefighters and I understand that a fourth firefighter has died, see this January 25th article by Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today, and as well as a fifth firefighter (an air tanker pilot). This in addition to deaths of civilians from the wildfires that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres. The 747 tanker was deployed to Chile last week, part of aid to Chile from around the world. The Russians sent an IL-76 tanker which arrived today (see the January 30th article on Fire Aviation) and more airtankers are enroute to Chile (see the January 29th article on Fire Aviation), including perhaps one of Coulson's C-130s.

I am embarrassed to say that I only realized today that Bill Gabbert of Wildlfire Today and Fire Aviation has been embedded with the 747 crew since it was deployed January 24th. Bill writes of the deployment of the 747 tanker and being embedded in this January 24th Fire Aviation article.

Bill has done a fantastic job reporting from Chile! Thanks Bill and stay safe. Anyway, there are way to many articles to refer to here. Rather I refer you to articles with the Chile label from Wildfire Today and articles with the Chile label from Fire Aviation. There are a lot of articles, but if you would like to see some photos and videos, see this January 29th article on Wildfire Today and a video shot from inside the 747 cockpit on Fire Aviation (January 28th). Bill has several posts with other videos and photos that you might want to check out.

Three wildland Chilean wildland firefighters die - RIP

I want to take a moment and  pause to remember three Chilean wildland firefighters, known as brigadiers from the Chilean National Forest Corporation who died on January 15th fighting wildfires in Chili.

Please join me in remembering and praying for:

Ricardo Salas
Sergio Faundez
Wilfredo Salgado

Reuters video
Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today on January 17th

I offer my condolences to the families, friends, colleagues and all who loved Ricardl, Sergio, and Wilfredo.

Wildfires in Indonesia - update

The Indonesian wildfires that I first reported on October 12, 2015 continue to burn. I am going to share a few links about these wildfires. Respitory problems continue. Schools and businesses are closed. Residents are evacuated from their homes.

Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today writes on November 4, 2015 that the United States sent “more than 21 metric tons of wildland firefighting equipment arrived in Indonesia from the United States to assist firefighters who are dealing with what has been described as ‘almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century.' He also provides a good summary of some of the other effects of these wildfires in Indonesia, including the detrimental effects of smoke.

Most of the Indonesian wildfires may be attributed to plantation companies clear land by burning in order to plant timber trees and palm trees. A Huffington Post Australia (11/2/15) article goes into more detail about how this works and elaborating on what was done differently this year:

The companies have cut canals and dried out the peat, the decaying vegetation matter on or under the forest floor, turning a valuable part of the ecosystem into a veritable tinderbox for fire. Coupled with El Nino climate factors, the fires met with the dried peat to spark a firestorm the likes of which have not been seen in Indonesia for some 20 years. The fires have also gone underground, burning and smouldering in the subterranean peat; these fires are all but impossible to extinguish and will burn almost endlessly, unable to be reached by rains or monsoon.

 The Huffington Post Australia article also includes some good photographs, a couple of videos, a map, and some recent satellite images of the wildfires that continue to burn in Indonesia.

More articles:

VoxyNZ (11/5/2015) Wellington Zoo in New Zealand donating $2000 from their conservation fund to help Indonesia fight the wildfires. The article also speaks to all the wildlife that is affected by these wildfires.

UPI (11/5/15) A good article and video from UPI on the closure of Mt. Merapi National Park because of smoke, school and businesses being forced to close and thousands of evacuations, ecological costs.

Brazil: wildland fire in Amazon threatens "uncontacted" tribe

Recently I have been working on finding additional sources of news affecting the wildland firefighting both in the United States and Internationally. I don’t know about you but while change does not always come easily, it can be a good thing. A good things because I find myself paying closer attention to things that I may have only giving a cursory glance, if that, a short time ago. Such is the case with a news item I saw just this morning about a forest fire that has been burning for over two months in the Amazon in the State of Maranhao in Brazil.

I don’t know much about Brazil, so I am going to take you along as I learn more about this wildfire and how the wildfire could affect the people who inhabit the region burned by the wildfire. Before I get to the wildfire itself, I’d like to ask you to read this short 2013 article and watch the accompanying seven-minute video about fighting wildland fires in Brazil: Brazil's fight against forest fires (from dw.com).

What drew my attention to this particular wildfire is that the burned area is home to an isolated Brazilian tribe, known as the Awá, that has had no contact with “outsiders.” The fire has burned over 730 square miles of a region known as the Arariboia Indigenous Territory. According to Toby Nicholas who reports for Survival International:

“This designated territory is home to Awá people who have no contact with the outside world. Like all uncontacted peoples, they are extremely vulnerable to exposure to violence or disease inflicted by outsiders,” writes Nicholas (obtained on November 2, 2015 from http://ens-newswire.com/2015/11/01/raging-amazon-forest-fire-menaces-uncontacted-tribe/)

I’d like to draw your attention to two news sources where you can learn more about this wildfire and how the Awá people could be affected. I learned something from reading these articles and I hope that you do as well.

• Environment News Service: Raging Forest Fire Menaces Uncontacted Tribe
• The Guardian (US Edition): Vast Amazon Wildfire Destroys Forest in Brazil and Threatens Uuncontacted Tribe (with a short video).

Indonesian wildfires

I first heard about wildfires in Indonesia last week when I came across an article in International Business Times (October 8th) reporting on wildland fires burning forests and peatland in Indonesia. According to the IBT article — based on drone footage and a press release from Greenpeace — at least 135,000 Indonesians are having respiratory problems from these smokey wildfires. I filed the article away, and decided to try to keep my eyes open for additional reports on these wildfires in Indonesia.

I came across a second article today dated on October 1st from the Jakarta Post reporting on these smokey wildfires with some additional information about the smoke and dry conditions in Indonesia and environs. It doesn't take long to read, and I hope that you take a minute or two to read the article.

Some friends of mine provided more information about these smokey wildfires in Indonesia commenting that New South Wales (NSW) in Australia is planning to loan  Coulson’s T-132 — whom NSW refers to as "Thor" — to Indonesia to help them fight these wildfires. I was curious and wanted to find some more specific information about Thor’s deployment so I found a short press release on the NSW website. According to this press release from the NSW Rural Fire Service NSW is sending the Lockheed C-130 Airtanker (Coulson’s T-132) to Indonesia early this week on a five day deployment. They are also sending a team of firefighters and other personnel to Indonesia.

Thanks to Bill Gabbert’s good reporting on Fire Aviation on October 10th, (link to article) I found more information on this deployment. Gabbert has more information on the deployment from Shane Fitzsimmons, Commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service that you will want to read.

I am thankful for the spirit of international cooperation exemplified by the State of New South Wales in Australia helping Indonesia fight these wildfires. I get the impression that the smoke from the wildfires in Indonesia is pretty bad. Thanks New South Wales and anyone else who is helping Indonesia battle these very smokey wildfires.

Wildfire in the Siberia region of Russia

Here is a video report from PBS (0ct. 3, 2015) on a wildfire in Russia. Seems like the western United States is not not the only region experiencing hot and dry condtions. The report also speaks to the ecologic affects of this wildfire on this special ecosystem.

On the international wildfire front

I get a lot of my news about wildfires burning outside the United States from Mike Archers WNOTD in his six-day a week e-mail Wildfire News of the Day, which you may subscribe to here. Bill Gabbert also has good coverage of international wildfire news on Wildfire Today. I can’t do justice to all the international wildfire news in one short article. But I do want to acknowledge here that I am keenly aware that wildfires are a global issue.

To that end here are a few international wildfire news items of the last three to five days that have caught my attention with links where you can go for more information.

It is summer in Australia and that means bushfire season. The Northcliffe Bushfire in Western Australia that has burned 143,000 acres: Wildfire Today (Feb 3rd) and Wildfire Today (Feb 4th). See also: Yahoo - GWN 7 (Feb 3rd), The West Australian (with photo gallery), and Australian Broadcasting Corp on animal rescue.

Moving from Australia to New Zealand, the Stuff.co.nz (Jan 31st) reporting that a 330 hectare wildfire in Flock Hill Station, New Zealand has been contained.

Finally, moving to Africa, n 86 acre wildfire in Uganda is covered by New Vision (Jan 31st). Note I had trouble loading this link, it worked intermittantly.