November 20, 2015 - BRAZIL - The fires follow months of extreme drought in the country's southern
states, which experts say is caused by climate change and deforestation.
Brazil's central Amazonas region has registered at least 906 active forest fires due to severe drought in the region, according to a new government report.
The Brazilian Institute for Space Research, known as INPE, reported
Sunday that satellites had detected the fires, which account for over 59
percent of all active fires in Brazil.
The region most affected has been the northern state of
Amazonas, the heart of the largest rainforest in the world. The region
has already seen 11,114 forest fires since January of this year - a 47
percent rise compared to the same period last year, said INPE.
The state capital Manaus has been wreathed in smoke, causing issues for
those with respiratory diseases. The smoke has failed to disperse
because of the lack of rain and winds in the region lately.
Researchers also reported that another 26.5 percent of actives
fires were found in the agricultural region of Cerrado, which extends
across the central states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins
and Minas Gerais.
Brazil's southeastern states have also been suffering from extreme
drought conditions this year, which put Sao Paulo - the country's
second largest city - on evacuation watch back in February and forced
several cities in the region to cancel carnival festivities due to low
water reserves.
Experts have associated Brazil's worsening water crisis with both
climate change and deforestation in the Amazon - two issues that
drastically reduce the release of billions of liters of water into the
atmosphere by rainforest trees, reducing rainfall in the south.
Researchers hope the dryness in Amazonas will end this month, since Brazil's rainy season generally begins in October. - teleSUR.
Smoke blocks the sun as New York City firefighters work to contain the fire. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
February 1, 2015 - NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Huge smoke plumes from a six-alarm fire at a Brooklyn storage
facility were pouring into Manhattan on Saturday as New York City
firefighters battled the blaze amid high winds and freezing
temperatures.
"It's a tough fire, and the weather is taking a toll
on the firefighters," said Michael Parrella, a FDNY spokesman. "It's
still very active."
Some 200 people including firefighters and
emergency medical workers were on the scene. No injuries had been
reported at the facility that houses mostly paper goods, Parrella said.
Firefighters
work to contain a building fire that grew to six alarms at the
CitiStorage warehouse building at 5 North 11th St. near Kent Avenue in
Brooklyn on Jan. 31. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
An aerial view of fire in Brooklyn.(Photo: Gary He, Insider Images, via European Pressphoto Agency)
Firefighters work to contain the building fire. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
A woman covers her face near the site of the fire. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
FDNY continues to battle 5-alarm fire in Brooklyn warehouse.
FDNY Marine 6 Fire Boat Bravest responding to the 4-alarm fire at 5 N 11 St, Brooklyn.
Hydrant at the 5-alarm warehouse fire in Brooklyn. FDNY dealing with high-winds & freezing temperatures.
A woman covers her face near the site of the fire. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)
The
initial call about the blaze came in at 6:28 a.m. Authorities plan to
investigate its cause once the fire is under control. The area around
the flames is closed to traffic.
Whipping wind is carrying large plumes of smoke over Brooklyn and across the East River into Manhattan.
WATCH: Firefighters are racing to contain a fire that has engulfed a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York.
"I smelled this burning smell and I looked up and saw all of this smoke billowing," Heather Schmidt, 33, told the New York Post.
Several residents wrapped scarves tightly around their faces to fend off the soot and smoke. - USA Today.
January 31, 2015 - MEXICO
- A gas truck explosion outside a Mexico City maternity hospital has
left at least two people dead and 53 others injured, including more than
20 children, according to city authorities.
The initial death toll was put at seven, but Adrian Rubalcava, head of the Cuajimalpa borough in Mexico City where the facility is located, later said that only two people lost their lives in the accident.
One of those killed was a child, while another was a woman around 40 years of age.
Rubalcava explained that the miscount occurred after several unconscious people who were retrieved from the debris were mistaken for dead.
The bodies were found in the debris of the collapsed building, according to local media reports. Between 30 to 40 percent of the structure had reportedly collapsed following the blast.
WATCH: Powerful gas explosion shatters maternity hospital in Mexico City.
Rubalcava said said that “the most worrisome is the collapse of a large part of the hospital.”
The explosion, which sent a smoke column billowing through western Mexico City, occurred when a hose supplying gas to the hospital burst Thursday morning. - RT.
An excursion steam train is believed to be among the causes of a 12 kilometre long blaze along railway tracks between Dunedin and Oamaru. Lisa Carter
January 24, 2015 - NEW ZEALAND
- An excursion steam train is believed to be among the causes of a 12
kilometre long blaze along railway tracks between Dunedin and Oamaru.
A fire service spokesman said the out of control blaze had taken out farmers' crops and was threatening houses.
He said 16 fire appliances and two helicopters have been fighting the blaze since 2.30 this afternoon.
The series of fires was blazing on both sides of the main trunk line between North Otago towns of Weston and Maheno, just south of Oamaru.
The fires had not been contained and were spreading, the spokesman said.
Houses and farms within the area were threatened. Crops in the fires' path had been destroyed.
There had been no reports of injury. The spokesman believed police were looking at closing SH1 in the affected area as thick smoke drifted across country.
Firefighters from a host of small communities along the south east coast had attended, including those from Hampden, Glenavy, Waitaki, Windsor, Kakanui, and as far south as Waitati just north of Dunedin.
Dunedin Railways chief executive Murray Bond said staff had been in contact with rural fire to take all necessary precautions prior to the steam train trip from Dunedin to Oamaru this morning, and the return journey this afternoon.
It was rare for a steam locomotive to do this journey, he said. It only happened once every two years.
He said the cause of the fire was still unknown at this stage.
Staff was waiting for the steam train to return from Oamaru around 6pm to investigate any potential issue with the steam locomotive, he said.
The whole trip had been without issue at all, he said.
Otago was placed under a total fire ban more than a week ago because of hot, dry conditions in the region.
The use of equipment that could cause sparks in the driest areas has been actively discouraged by authorities and farmers have been restricted from irrigating out of waterways.
"In these conditions any fire is difficult to contain but being able to respond early has made a difference," principal rural fire officer Stephanie Rotarangi said.
The Otago Rural Fire Authority had now taken charge of the incident. - Stuff.
Washington, DC, firefighters load a victim into a medical bus after
passengers on the Washington METRO (subway) service January 12, 2015,
were injured when smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza station during the
rush hours. (AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)
January 12, 2015 - WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES
- A woman has died and two others remain in critical condition after an
incident at L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington, DC. The station
was evacuated and closed for commuters after smoke filled a subway car.
"We don't know yet the cause of the heavy smoke," the general
manager of DC's metro system, Richard Sarles, told a local NBC affiliate
as he announced that one woman had died as a result of the incident.
The latest:
One dead, two in critical condition, with many others taken to hospitals.
L’Enfant Plaza Metro station was evacuated and closed for smoke.
Service is suspended near L’Enfant Plaza on the Yellow and Green Lines.
Orange, Blue and Silver line trains are bypassing L’Enfant Plaza.
Train passengers were evacuated from a train in a tunnel.
Source of the smoke at L’Enfant Plaza is unknown.
Updated 6:47 p.m.
Metro
General Manager Richard Sarles said one of the passengers injured in
the tunnel incident has died. The woman has not been identified pending
notification of next of kin, he said.
In addition, Sarles said
two people were in critical condition at George Washington Hospital; 40
were transported by bus to Howard University Hospital, and another 20 to
25 people were taken to Washington Hospital Center.
Sarles said
that since the incident involved a fatality, the Metropolitan Police
Department would now be involved in the investigation.
Updated: 5:54 p.m.
Six people were injured, one critically, when smoke filled a Metro tunnel Monday afternoon.
Tim
Wilson, a spokesman for D.C. Fire and EMS, said one person has been
transported to an area hospital with a critical injury but he did not
know the cause or severity of the injury. Another five people were
transported with minor injuries.
A Metrobus at 7th and D streets
SW held people from the tunnel and the train station. About 20 appeared
to be on board, some being treated by firefighters with oxygen.
Jonathan Rogers was aboard the Yellow Line train when it came to an abrupt halt as it headed to the Pentagon Station.
WATCH: RAW - Inside the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station.
“You could see smoke coming through the doors,” he said. “It started to get scary pretty quick.”
He
said the train operator got on the loudspeaker and urged people to
remain calm. He said the plan was to back up the train to the platform
of the L’Enfant station.
“We’re going to move the train backwards,” Rogers recalled the driver saying.
But after more time, it became apparent that strategy wasn’t going to work.
He said passengers remained relatively calm, but as the smoke grew thicker, some began to panic.
“People
started praying,” he said. “Smoke was coming in pretty steadily. Some
people were fine and some people were just hurting pretty quickly.”
He said a man standing next to him, started having breathing problems and sank to the floor.
Passengers
watched out for each other, sharing inhalers with those who were having
trouble breathing, he said. After a few more minutes, another woman
standing near him said she couldn’t breathe and then passed out. Rogers
and other passengers took turns giving her CPR.
“We just kept
doing (CPR), maybe 25 minutes . . . we just kept going. Somebody helped
carry her toward the back of the train – that was before the fire
fighters arrived.”
Rogers said it took about 40 minutes before
firefighters arrived and began evacuating the train. Passengers walked
through the tunnel back to L’Enfant station. He said the air in the
tunnel was easier to breathe than the air on the train. On the train, he
said the smoked had a chemical smell, but in the tunnel it had the
distinct smell of burning wood. Once they got to L’Enfant he saw a lot
of ambulances and fire trucks.
Rogers, who works for the D.C.
Department of Transportation, took a Capital BikeShare bike back to his
office near the Navy Yard. Normally, he would have taken BikeShare back
to his office, but opted to take Metro because it was raining. And then,
he’d gotten aboard the Yellow Line by mistake. He meant to catch a
Green Line train.
“The only scary part was not knowing if the smoke was going to stop,” he said.
Adjoa
Adofo, 30, had just gotten off work as a public relations consultant
and was on the Yellow line headed to Virginia to go shopping.
A
few minutes after pulling out of the station and into the tunnel, she
said the train came to an abrupt halt and smoke came in thorough the
closed doors. She said the train was crowded but not packed, with room
in the center aisle
“People were panicking,” said Adofo, who
lives nearNavy Yard. “We didn’t know what to do and and we weren’t
getting a lot of information.”
L'Enfant Plaza evacuated due to fire. DC EMS just loaded a woman into ambulance after performing CPR for 5 min.
Firefighters confer after passengers on the Metro (subway) service were
injured when smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza station during
the evening
rush hour January 12, 2015 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo/Paul J.
Richards)
Smoke inhalation victims walk past a firefighter towards a medical aid
bus after passengers on the Metro (subway) were injured when smoke
filled
the L'Enfant Plaza station during the evening rush hour January
12, 2015 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)
She said the train operator told
them there was no fire, just smoke. “That calmed people down a little
bit ,” she said. “But smoke continued to come in. The driver told us not
to open the doors. That was the big thing. More smoke would come in.
But people were panicking. They were trying up open the doors anyway.”
She
said people sat down on the floor to get away from the smoke. She said
all the lights were out. “It was black. Pitch black.” She said one young
man suffered a seizure and an older man began banging on the doors
screaming profanities.
She said they were there about 30 to 40
minutes. She said the operator told them they were waiting for a train
in the station to move so they could return but communication had broken
down. Finally she said metro personnel and firefighters got everyone
out and they marched single fine back to the station.
Adofo emerged nearly in tears and said she prayed — Hail Marys and Our Fathers. “I’m just glad that I’m out of there.”
Saleh
Damiger and Sirwan Kajjo said they thought they were “going to die”
when they Yellow Line train they were on Monday afternoon filled with
smoke.
Damiger, 43, and Kajjo, 28, both Voice of America
employees, got on a Yellow Line train headed toward the Pentagon about 3
p.m. They said the six-car train had gone about 200 feet when it
stopped. The train operator said “there’s a problem, nobody move”. The
men said the car quickly began to fill will smoke.
“The train
stopped and all of a sudden it filled with smoke. … There was no fire.
Lots of smoke only. … People were choking. People were yelling, Damiger
said. “It was a lot of smoke. We couldn’t see each other. … One woman,
she started to pray. .. We felt like we were almost going to die.”
Metro employees quickly got onto the train and told passengers to get low to the ground to avoid the smoke.
“They
told us to get down, get down in the floor, stay low … Of course it was
dark too,” Kajjo said. “The lights were gone. We couldn’t see.”
The
men said they saw at least two people who appeared to be unconscious.
They said they waited about an hour before firefighters arrived and
began escorting them off the train and led them out of the tunnel.
They described the experienced as “harrowing”.
No
cause of the smoke has been determined. Around 5:40 p.m., Metro
spokeswoman Caroline Laurin said that the smoke has now cleared from the
station. That is at least in part due to the tunnel fans that Metro
workers turned on, she said. But in the event that the fire was caused
by an electrical malfunction – which workers have not yet confirmed –
the smoke may also have abated because Metro shut down the third rail at
L’Enfant Plaza.
As of 5:40 p.m., Green/Yellow line service has
been restored at Gallery Place Station for service to/from stations
north (toward Greenbelt). Green/Yellow service remains suspended between
Gallery Place and Navy Yard/Pentagon.
Yellow Line riders traveling between Virginia and DC should use the Blue Line as an alternate.
Andrew
Ames, spokesman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said the FBI
responded to the incident. He said it is standard protocol to respond.
“At this point it doesn’t appear to be anything other than a fire.”
L’Enfant
Plaza Metro station is closed after officials evacuated it for smoke
Monday afternoon, shutting down rail service for a large portion of the
Green and Yellow lines.
Green Line service is suspended between
Navy Yard and Mt. Vernon Square. Yellow Line service is suspended
between Pentagon City and Mt. Vernon Square, Metro said.
Blue, Orange and Silver lines trains are bypassing L’Enfant Plaza, but service is not affected at other stops.
D.C.
fire department spokesman Tim Wilson said that firefighters are on the
scene but had found no fire. On Twitter, the firefighters’ union said
that a second alarm had sounded.
Although the event has been
labeled a “mass casualty event” that refers strictly to the number of
people involved and is not a suggestion that there are numerous injuries
or deaths. D.C. Fire and EMS reported via Twitter that people are being
removed from a disabled train inside a tunnel and that no serious
injuries have been reported.
Metro spokeswoman Caroline Laurin said that Metro did not know the cause of the smoke.
Roads near the station were also closed.
Yellow
Line riders can use the Blue Line instead. For Green Line riders, who
do not have another Metro option, Metro said at 4:16 p.m. that it was
sending shuttle buses to L’Enfant Plaza and Navy Yard. - Washington Post.
June 16, 2014 - EL SALVADOR - The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) reports seismic
vibration under Chaparrastique volcano has been very intense in the
last days.
The Chaparrastique volcano in eastern El Salvador.
Local observers reported hearing a booming noise about this
day at 2:00 am. There have been very little vapor or gas emissions so
far.
This indicates that the duct system of the volcano is partially
obstructed, withstanding the pressure of magmatic fluids, so there is a
high probability of eruptive activity, either through the central crater
or on its flanks. Eruptions in the last 500 years have been in the
VEI-1 to VEI-2 range.
Volcanic tremor under Chaparrastique volcano now reached similar to the pre-eruption of December 2013 measured values.
In the last few days the vibration of the volcano reached similar to the
pre-eruption of December 29, 2013 measured values. Since February 2014
several hundred microearthquakes have been recorded under the northern
flank of the volcano.
MARN informs about the tremor status every hour and new reports here on twitter.
- Volcano Cafe.
May 20, 2014 - EL SALVADOR - El Salvador's San Miguel volcano, also known as Chaparrastique,
erupted Monday, spewing reddish ash and prompting authorities to
evacuate at least 1,000 as a precautionary measure.
Chaparrastique volcano spews ashes and smoke in San Miguel, El Salvador, on Dec. 29, 2013. (Getty Images)
The volcano is 90
miles from the country's capital of San Salvador.
The
Civil Protection Department said in a statement that an alert had been
declared for the municipality of San Miguel, where the volcano is
located.
The city of San Miguel is 30 miles from the volcano. It is one
of the largest cities in the Central American country.
The volcano erupted twice in December. Recently it has been experiencing higher levels of activity than those previous eruptions, El Salvador Environment Minister Hernan Rosa Chavez told Reuters.
The 7,025-foot volcano's last significant eruption was in 1976. - The Weather Channel.
April 10, 2014 - NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES - A large brush fire with flames 40
feet high raged near Edison, N.J. Thursday, burning 250 acres and
sending thick plumes of smoke into the sky.
A brush fire in Edison is burned the swamp grass of the north shores of the Raritan River Thursday.
The fire burned near the Raritan Center industrial complex, which houses hundreds of businesses, including day cares, hotels and a FedEx facility.
Wind gusts over 15 mph pushed the fire from Edison into Woodbridge, according to Edison Fire Chief Brian Latham.
After several hours, the fire was 95 percent contained, Latham said. A helicopter was being used to help douse the flames.
WATCH: Chopper 4 captured video of a large brush fire with flames leaping 25 feet high raging near Edison, N.J.
Officials said the state forest service would stay on site overnight to observe and make sure hot spots didn't flare up.
There was no immediate word about a cause. - NBC New York.
February 13, 2014 - EL SALVADOR - A small ash explosion occurred yesterday afternoon at the volcano, at
16:44 (local time).
Sequence of the small explosion at San Miguel yesterday (MARN)
Tremor amplitude at San Miguel volcano over the past weeks (MARN)
Location of recent earthquakes at San Miguel (MARN)
It only lasted about 10 minutes and produced a small
ash plume rising approx. 500 m. It is the first eruptive activity since
the larger explosion on 29 Dec past year, and is likely only a
precursor of more violent activity to come.
Seismic activity has been
increasing constantly over the past weeks, and clusters of earthquakes
have been taking place at shallow (1 km) depth beneath the northern
flank, MARN scientists measured. Tremor, indication of internal fluid
(magma) movements and/or pressure, has been rising in intensity. As
well, increasing values of sulfur dioxide (SO2) degassing suggest that
new magma is rising within the volcanic edifice.
- Volcano Discovery.
December 30, 2013 - EL SALVADOR - Thousands of people in eastern El Salvador are leaving their homes after a volcano erupted on Sunday morning.
Cameras filmed clouds of black smoke billowing from the volcano.
Residents in the coffee-producing region said they had heard a powerful explosion before the Chaparrastique volcano began spewing hot ash and smoke into the air.
No one has been hurt, say the authorities. Anyone living in a 3km (2 mile) radius will be evacuated.
Some 300 communities live around the volcano.
Temporary shelters are being set up in the area.
Civil protection authorities say that some 5,000 people live in the area, in San Miguel province.
The eruption began at 10:30 local time (16:30 GMT).
WATCH: El Salvador's Chaparrastique Volcano Erupts.
The Salvadoran government says it had been monitoring the situation since 13 December, when they detected increased activity inside the volcano.
There are more than 20 volcanoes in the small Central American nation.
At 2,129 metres (7,000 ft) above sea level, Chaparrastique is the third highest volcano in the country.
It spewed lava in 1976 and caused a strong tremor in the area in 2010. - BBC.
