Texas home to Wildfires, Snow, and Earthquakes

Texas-Wildfire-Earthquake

Important Takeaways:

  • Texas earthquakes and wildfires are rivaling those of California
  • February was a wild time for Texas, with potentially record-breaking earthquakes in South Texas, record-setting fires blazing the Texas Panhandle while snow blanketed the region, and dry and unseasonably warm conditions for much of the state.
  • In just the last month, Texas saw two earthquakes reach a Magnitude 4 or higher. In fact, the February 17 earthquake that shook South Central Texas — there were reports even in San Antonio despite the epicenter being tied to Falls City — was a Magnitude 4.7
  • Rubinstein told MySA this would be the largest human-induced earthquake in U.S. history if it’s tied to the fracking industry. That determination could take up to six months to make.
  • While wildfires certainly get a lot more attention in California… Texas really has much larger and more frequent wildfires according to data compiled by their respective state agencies.
  • According to data compiled by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, there were about 137 wildland fires so far this year, which have burned a total of 265 acres, and a total of 235 in last year which ignited 89 acres. This pales in comparison to the sheer volume of fires burning Texas plains in February alone
  • As of Friday, March 1, the deadly and devastating Smokehouse Creek Fire has nearly ignited 1.1 million acres in the Texas Panhandle, breaking not only the record for the largest fire in Texas history but surpassing California’s largest fire on record — the August Complex Fire which burned 1,032,648 acres in 2020, according to data from Reuters.
  • And that’s not the only notable fire that ignited in February.
    • In fact, data from the Texas A&M Forest Service shows there were a whopping 12,411 wildfires in Texas in 2022 that burned more than 650,000 acres. In 2023, there were 7,530 that charred over 205,000 acres.

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Wildfire in Texas: Conditions are ripe with winds over 40mph and unseasonably warm

Flower-Mound-Texas-wildfire

Important Takeaways:

  • Out-of-control wildfires scorch Texas Panhandle and briefly shut down nuclear weapons facility
  • A series of wildfires swept across the Texas Panhandle early Wednesday, prompting evacuations, cutting off power to thousands, and forcing the brief shutdown of a nuclear weapons facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes.
  • Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties as the main blaze, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, swelled into the second-largest wildfire in the state’s history. The main facility that disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal paused operations Tuesday night but said it was open for normal work on Wednesday.
  • Authorities have not said what might have caused the blaze, which tore through sparsely populated counties set amid vast, high plains punctuated by cattle ranches and oil rigs.
  • The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings and fire danger alerts for several other states through the midsection of the country, as high winds of over 40 mph (64 kph) combined with warm temperatures, low humidity and dry winter vegetation to make conditions ripe for wildfires.

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Canary Islands wildfire is now stabilized, but firefighters remain watchful

Before-After-Tenerife

Important Takeaways:

  • Tenerife firefighters stabilize huge wildfire after nine days
  • Firefighters have stabilized a huge wildfire that has burned for 10 days on Tenerife, ravaging thousands of acres of woodland on the largest of the Canary Islands, authorities said late on Thursday.
  • There was a risk that hotspots inside the fire’s perimeter, which spread to around 90 km (56 miles), could still reignite, “especially in the central hours of the day,” the island’s emergency services said on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Teams were working to contain those.
  • The fire, which started on Aug. 15, has destroyed about 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres)
  • Elsewhere in Europe, firefighters have been tackling devastating blazes in Greece, Italy and Portugal, driven by searing temperatures and dry and windy conditions…

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Hawaiian Electric Company blamed for negligence in causing the wildfire

Important Takeaways:

  • Maui County Sues Hawaiian Electric for Causing Wildfire Through Negligence
  • President Joe Biden’s administration has explicitly blamed climate change for the blaze, with senior “clean energy” adviser John Podesta going further and touting Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as the solution. But it turns out that the spread of alien, invasive grass species on abandoned farmland was a major factor in providing fuel for the blaze that destroyed the town of Lahaina, and local authorities are placing immediate blame on the local power company.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported:
    • Maui County filed a lawsuit … in state Second Circuit Court in Hawaii against Hawaiian Electric and its subsidiaries on Maui, alleging the company failed to maintain the electrical system and power grid during a windstorm that lashed the island, resulting in three different fires that erupted on Aug. 8.
    • The lawsuit claims that the utility, known as HECO, acted negligently by not pre-emptively cutting power despite a warning the prior day from the National Weather Service of high winds and temperatures, along with low humidity—prime conditions for a wildfire. It also says HECO’s failure to maintain its system led to energized, downed power lines causing the fires.
  • The utility has also been faulted for spending money on “green” energy alternatives rather than in improving the safety of its transmission network, which had been identified as a potential source of wildfire risk in the recent past.

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Fires, Drought and Extreme Heat over the Canary Islands

Tenerife Wildfire

Important Takeaways:

  • Thousands more evacuated as Tenerife fire rages on Spain’s Canary Islands
  • Canary Islands (AP) — Thousands more residents of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands have fled their homes as a wildfire that authorities deemed “out of control” raged on for a fourth day.
  • The regional government for the Canary Islands said that 4,000 more people were ordered to evacuate on Saturday. Those were in addition to the 4,500 people who on Friday were forced to move out of harm’s way on the Atlantic island that is home to around a million people and is also a popular tourist destination.
  • That figure of more than 8,000 evacuees is expected to rise, and perhaps sharply.
  • The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of the past few years, just like most of mainland Spain. The islands have recorded below-average rainfall in recent years because of changing weather patterns impacted by climate change.
  • The Tenerife fire comes as Spain’s mainland is bracing for another heat wave. Spain’s state weather service issued a warning Saturday that temperatures would be on the rise in the coming days, hitting 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in parts of the mainland.
  • Spain had a record-hot 2022 and is setting new heat records this year amid a prolonged drought that has authorities on alert for wildfires.

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Reason to believe the death toll is higher than reported and they’re running out of body bags

Cadaver-Dog-search

Important Takeaways:

  • Maui’s wildfire death toll officially 114, but locals running out of body bags reckon it’s closer to 500, with thousands still missing
  • Maui Police Chief John Pelletier indicated early last week that rescuers accompanied by scores of cadaver dogs were working their way through the aftermath, over 85% of which had been covered by Sunday, according to Hawaii Gov. Josh Green.
  • Locals, whose morgues have reportedly run out of body bags, indicated that the actual number of deaths is the neighborhood of 500.
  • Allisen Medina told the Daily Mail, “I know there are at least 480 dead here in Maui, and I don’t understand why they’re [the authorities] not saying that. Maybe it’s to do with DNA or something.”
  • The FBI announced Friday it would be opening a DNA matching site to speed up the process.
  • “No one has ever seen this that is alive today. Not this size, not this number, not this volume — and we’re not done,” said the Maui police chief.

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Biden’s Hawaii Wildfire response is familiar

Lahaina-Hawaii-Wildfire

Important Takeaways:

  • In President Biden’s response to the devastating wildfires in Maui, we can see the reemergence of a familiar habit: to ignore, dance around and/or gaslight the public about a difficult situation — whether it’s self-inflicted or not — and respond to it only when the critiques become so deafening, they drown out all else. And the coup de grâce: to sing his own praises afterwards.
  • In June 2021, Biden dismissed consumers’ concerns about the early warning signs of inflation. A few months later, Biden said it was the “difficult challenges and complications caused by COVID-19” that were “driving up costs for American families.” Those challenges and complications were in no small part driven by an ill-advised $1.9 trillion spending jubilee Biden championed and signed at the outset of his presidency.
  • Biden’s roadmap for this kind of obfuscation was modeled by his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He called the evacuation an “extraordinary success.”
  • Last week, Biden promised the federal government would give Maui “everything it needs.” But then Sunday — whilst enjoying one of his many days at the beach — Biden was apparently too busy to comment on the devastation.
  • Don’t be surprised when — not if — he eschews taking responsibility for his callousness in favor of unearned self-congratulations.

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MAUI Wildfire update: “Impossible Situation” still no details on how it happened; death toll expected to rise

Burned out cars Lahaina

Important Takeaways:

  • New video shows Lahaina residents bobbing in choppy ocean after jumping into water to escape Maui fire that killed 55 and counting
  • The fire began on Tuesday, spreading quickly and ferociously. The exact cause of it remains unclear but high winds, dry conditions and low humidity exacerbated the flames.
  • Fifty-five people have been confirmed dead already and 1,000 remain missing three days on from the blaze.
  • In an interview this morning, the Mayor of Maui County said the bodies found so far have all been discovered in the street, outside properties. Search teams have not yet begun pulling bodies from homes and businesses.
  • An unknown number of people are also thought to have perished in their cars while trying to escape the hellish flames.
  • ‘I think that number could go up. According to those doing the recovery – our police, Coast Guard and National Guard, that was the number they found of people outside of the buildings. We have not yet searched the interior of the buildings. We’re waiting for FEMA to help with that search.
  • ‘They are equipped to handle the hazmat conditions of the buildings that have been burned,’ Mayor Richard Bissen told the TODAY show.
  • The West side of the island remains without power, water and communications.
  • ‘They have no internet, no cell phone. That’s the challenge. We’ve been sending crews out with water…but our focus is on finding any missing persons. We want to give people information.’
  • ‘This was an impossible situation. The winds that hit us on that side of the island, the gusts were up to 80mph. Some sustained up to 45 and 60 mph. Everything happened so quickly.
  • ‘I can’t comment on whether or not the sirens sounded or not but the fires came up so quickly and spread so fast. ‘

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Portugal firefighters battling out of control wildfire; Evacuations in place

Forest Fire Portugal

Important Takeaways:

  • Raging Portugal wildfires force hundreds of tourists to flee apocalyptic inferno
  • Hundreds of terrified tourists have been evacuated from dream holidays in southern Portugal after wildfires continue to rage out of control.
  • The huge blaze has destroyed thousands of hectares of land in the area of Odemira, in the Alentejo region, since the disaster started on Saturday. It has now spread south towards the Algarve, prompting the evacuation of 1,400 people which includes tourists staying at four resorts in the holiday destination, as well as 19 small villages.
  • Efforts by hundreds of firefighters to control the flames are being hampered by high temperatures which have reached 40C and strong winds. Satellite photos showed huge amounts of smoke billowing from the areas.
  • Civil Protection commander Jose Ribeiro said there was still a “lot of work” to do to bring the wildfire under control.
  • August is usually the hottest month of the year in Portugal.
  • The huge fires in Portugal follows extreme weather in July which caused havoc across the planet, with record temperatures recorded in China, the United States and parts of southern Europe.

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At least 36 killed on Maui and thousands race to escape

Important Takeaways:

  • At least 36 killed on Maui as fires burn through Hawaii and thousands race to escape
  • Wildfires fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane killed 36 people and destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings on the Hawaiian island of Maui, in the deadliest blaze in the U.S. in years.
  • Firefighters still battled blazes on the island, as local officials prepared to evacuate thousands of visitors and find shelter for residents in need.
  • The flames left some people with mere minutes to act and led some to flee into the ocean.
  • It is the deadliest fire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and virtually razed the town of Paradise.
  • Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said the island had “been tested like never before in our lifetime.”

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