Latest Wildfires News

Editorial Roundup: South Carolina

Mar. 16, 2023 07:17 AM EDT

Post and Courier. March 13, 2023. Editorial: SC budget plan finally delivers $50K starting pay — but not for teachers The idea of “defunding police” was never taken seriously in South Carolina. Although activists in Charleston and a few other cities called for...

Firefighter battling Virginia wildfire dies in ATV accident

Mar. 10, 2023 20:11 PM EST

ROSEANN, Va. (AP) — A firefighter battling a wildfire in western Virginia was killed when an ATV overturned, the state Department of Forestry announced Friday. Rocky S. Wood was killed while fighting a 15-acre wildfire near the Roseann community in Buchanan County on Thursday night, the...

Post-wildfire conditions result in poor recovery for fish

Mar. 10, 2023 19:02 PM EST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Fishing in rivers and streams that cross through a national monument in northern New Mexico is off limits now as wildlife managers look for ways make the area more habitable following a catastrophic fire and years of subsequent flooding. Managers at...

New Jersey Pinelands fire that threatened homes is contained

Mar. 07, 2023 21:03 PM EST

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. (AP) — A wind-whipped forest fire in the southern New Jersey Pinelands that threatened 16 homes Tuesday was fully contained by nightfall, and firefighters said they believed the homes were no longer in jeopardy. No injuries or damage to property occurred...

Work begins to clear water canals following New Mexico fire

Mar. 06, 2023 17:08 PM EST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It's tradition in New Mexico's rural communities — to gather with neighbors each spring, shovels and rakes in hand, to clean the earthen irrigation canals that will direct snowmelt from the surrounding mountains to crops, gardens and orchards. Doing the...

Carbon emissions from boreal forest fires rose in 2021

Mar. 02, 2023 14:31 PM EST

Phillip Meintzer was hours away by car from the largest fires raging in the forests of British Columbia and Alberta in summer of 2021, but the air was still thick with smoke from the Canadian infernos. “The fires weren't next door. It was a little ways away,” Meintzer, a...

New Mexico law signed to help wildfire, flooding recovery

Feb. 20, 2023 17:06 PM EST

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed to use zero-interest loans to help local governments in the arid, Southwest state repair or replace public infrastructure damaged by wildfires or subsequent flooding. The law follows last year's historic...

Colorado ponders storing carbon in defunct oil and gas wells

Feb. 16, 2023 19:40 PM EST

DENVER (AP) — From Colorado's high desert to the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, millions of oil and gas wells sit deserted, plunging thousands of feet into the earth. Many haven't been plugged, some leak greenhouse gases. In Colorado, lawmakers are considering a solution that would...

Wildfire damage prompts calls for funding water system

Feb. 14, 2023 18:54 PM EST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Dozens of traditional irrigation systems that supply community farms, gardens and orchards in northern New Mexico won’t flow with water this spring, forcing many families to decide whether to risk planting crops this year with no guarantee of water. Rural...

2 pilots walk away from Boeing 737 tanker crash in Australia

Feb. 07, 2023 04:43 AM EST

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Two pilots walked away with minor injuries after a Boeing 737 jet converted for firefighting crashed in Australia, officials said Tuesday. The twin-engine tanker owned by Canadian-based Coulson Aviation crashed in Fitzgerald River National Park in southern...