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Forest Fires
The fires that have broken out in Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa are being kept under control through the joint efforts of the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and the forest department, state minister Vishwajit Rane said on Thursday. The Indian Navy has deployed helicopters, with 'Large Area Aerial Liquid Dispersion Equipment' mounted on them, to carry out sorties since Tuesday to douse the fires, a defence spokesperson said. The sanctuary, located in the north-eastern part of the state along the border with Karnataka, has been witnessing fires at multiple sites for the past six days. "An IAF helicopter has conducted reconnaissance of the sanctuary while the Indian Navy has deployed four helicopters. The fire has been kept under control and we are monitoring the situation on an hourly basis," Rane said. He said forest department officials are inside the sanctuary as part of the dousing operations, and, as on Thursday, there are three minor fires active in the area. "A total of 28
The Amazon rainforest has been degraded by a much greater extent than scientists previously believed with more than a third of remaining forest affected by humans, according to a new study. The study shows that up to 38 per cent of the remaining Amazon forest area - equivalent to ten times the size of the UK - has been affected by some form of human disturbance, causing carbon emissions equivalent to or greater than those from deforestation. The paper was led by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions such as Brazil's University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and UK's Lancaster University, it said. The work is the result of the AIMES (Analysis, Integration and Modelling of the Earth System) project, linked to the Future Earth international initiative, which brings together scientists and researchers who study sustainability, the study said. The findings, ...
Dr. Suzy Fitzgerald remembers looking out the windows as wildfire flames surrounded the hospital where she worked. We had fire in all three directions, Fitzgerald recalled. I thought, Oh gosh, this is serious. We need to get these people out.' Fitzgerald helped with the evacuation of 122 patients from Kaiser Permanente's Santa Rosa Medical Center on that night nearly five years ago, as the blaze gobbled up homes and buildings across Northern California. The hospital, which had filled with smoke, closed for 17 days. Medical centers around the country say that fires, flooding, heat waves and other extreme weather are jeopardizing medical services, damaging health care facilities and forcing patients to flee their hospital beds, according to a report released Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee. At a hearing, Dr. Parinda Khatri, the CEO of Cherokee Health Systems, told the committee that a pediatric clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, was forced to close for 10 days this summer
A huge forest fire has burned tens of thousands of acres in northern Kazakhstan, displacing almost 2,000 people, the head of the crisis management office said Saturday.The wildfire broke out in the Kostanay Province on Friday and spread quickly over a large swath of land, scorching 9,400 hectares (23,230 acres) by Saturday night, Aybol Akbarov told reporters.Four villages have been evacuated and the entire region placed on the extreme emergency level. Hundreds of firefighters and more than 50 fire engines are battling the blaze.Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will go to the region on Monday to inspect the operational headquarters, his press office said. Tokayev has told the government to unlock emergency funds needed to deal with the crisis.