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FIRE STORM
Firefighters battle wildfires in Portugal, Spain

California fires caused by Mexican cartel: officials
The fires that hit a protected forest area in mountains close to the northwestern California city of Santa Barbara could have been started by Mexican drug traffickers, officials said Tuesday. "The reality is that we could have an army out there and not be able to cover all of that ground," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told reporters, saying he based his claim on the size of a marijuana farm and equipment found where the fire began. His statement confirmed claims made over the weekend by officials at Los Padres National Forest. Some 30,000 marijuana plants, some as high as six feet (1.83 meters), were found in a remote forest area officials say was likely being used as an illegal pot garden by a Mexico-based drug operation. A special team of US Forest Service, a counternarcotics police unit and investigators from the Santa Barbara County Fire Department uncovered stacks of propane tanks, irrigation tubing, empty fertilizer canisters, a cooking stove and a semi-automatic rifle, the Los Angeles Times reported. The major Los Padres fire has been burning since August 8, destroying over 88,650 acres (35,875 hectares) but is now 75 percent under control, Calfire said. Local counternarcotics units had traveled through the same area several months ago and were surprised by the new find. So far this year, US Forest Service and Santa Barbara County counternarcotics agents have uprooted a record 225,058 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of 675 million dollars. In July, agents pulled 113,000 plants at a camp not far from the site where the fire broke out. Santa Barbara is about 215 miles (350 kilometers) from the US border with Mexico between San Diego and Tijuana, one of the most patrolled points along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,000-kilometer) long divide between the two North American countries.
by Staff Writers
 Lisbon (AFP) Aug 19, 2009
 Hundreds of firefighters battled raging wildfires in northern Portugal and Spain Wednesday, as the flames disrupted an international train route and sparked the evacuation of a village.

Firefighters and police backed by water-dropping aircraft battled several wildfires in northern Portugal as strong winds hampered their task, reigniting some blazes that had been under control, the civil protection agency said.

An international train route used by passengers travelling from the coast of Portugal to France was cut off by a fire for several hours, operators said.

Some 250 firefighters backed by five water-dropping helicopters and planes had fought to control the fire which threatened the railroad.

One fire raging in the natural park of Douro in northwest Portugal crossed the border into Spain, leading to the evacuation of a village.

Residential areas in Portugal are not threatened by the fires, which have taken place in forest areas, the civil protection agency said.

Firefighters had brought several of the fires under control by late Wednesday but more than 150 of them were still battling two blazes near Spain.

But authorities in neighbouring Spain said they had ordered residents to leave the village of La Bouza, Salamanca, as flames approached the area.

Earlier Wednesday, more than 300 Spanish firefighters and soldiers, backed by 17 aircraft, were fighting a wildfire that has destroyed some 5,000 hectares in the northern region of Aragon, officials said.

Strong winds and scorching temperatures have made the fire, which erupted on Tuesday for unknown reasons inside a military training camp at San Gregorio near Zaragoza, difficult to control, the Aragon government said.

Firefighting efforts were complicated by the risk that weapons in the camp could explode from the heat and this was restricting the movement of ground forces, it added in a statement.

Between January 1 and August 9 wildfires have ravaged 84,064 hectares of land in Spain, more than during all of last year and the highest amount in the past decade, figures released Wednesday by the environment ministry showed.

More than half of the fire damage this year was in northeastern Spain.

The blazes have claimed eight lives, including six firefighters, since last month.

Last week Greenpeace warned that heat waves and drier land caused by climate change have combined with "land use changes, abandonment of rural areas and a lack of management of forest areas" to make forests "more flammable, leading to ever larger and more uncontrollable fires."

In Portugal, fires destroyed nearly 24,000 hectares of land between January 1 and August 15, around 7,000 hectares more than all of last year.

Dozens of fires have been erupting every day since the start of summer in Portugal, but most are quickly brought under control. On Tuesday alone, firefighters put out 176 forest fires, according to the civil protection agency.

burs/lth/jj

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FIRE STORM
Australian inquiry slams wildfire failures
 Melbourne (AFP) Aug 17, 2009
 An inquiry into Australia's worst wildfires said Monday that the disaster that claimed 173 lives in February showed residents should be encouraged to flee their homes as early as possible. Entire towns and more than 2,000 homes were razed during the "Black Saturday" disaster on February 7 as record high temperatures, gusting winds and drought-parched countryside created a firestorm in ... read more






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