Wild Fires

I reported on this earlier in the season. This has NOT gone away

Fires spread in Russian Far East

Russian forestry authorities reported 27 separate fires burning Thursday in the taiga, or northern forests, of the Russian Far East.

UPI,

26 April, 2012

Only three have been completely extinguished in the last 24 hours, they said.

"At least 747 people, 106 units of hardware and 12 aircraft are involved in fighting the fires," the Forestry department of the Far East Federal District said Thursday.

In Yakutia Territory, bordering the Arctic Ocean in northeast Siberia, 18 separate fires have been reported, burning 6,002 acres. Seven fires burn in Khabarovsk Territory, on the Pacific Ocean near the Chinese border, affecting 1,359 acres, and several "hot spots" were reported in Chukotka Territory, in northernmost Russia, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass said.

The cause of the fires was not reported, but "since the beginning of the season" the Far East Federal District has counted 2,820 forest fires, the news agency said.

Resorts emptied as wildfires scorch Sicily

UPI,

6 August, 2012

About 300 tourists were evacuated from Sicilian resorts, officials said, as about 30 fires burned forests and fields across Italy.

Vacationers were forced to evacuate resorts in northwestern portions of the island around Calampiso Sunday, Italian news agency ANSA reported. They were taken to nearby San Vito Lo Capo, where they slept outside in the yard of an elementary school.

A blaze near San Vito Lo Capo had cut off roads to some resorts around Castelluzzo.

A forestry worker was killed Saturday near Castronovo di Sicilia, about 30 miles southeast of Palermo, while helping to fight the fires.

The mayor of San Vito Lo Capo said the nearby Zingaro nature reserve "has gone up in smoke." While the fire was reported under control, Matteo Rizzo said that was only because the fire had burned itself out.

Sicilian authorities sent out nine different requests for help, while officials in the Italian regions of Campania and Lazio have each made six requests.

Italy's hot, dry weather, with temperatures reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Sicily, is blamed for many of the fires, with the rest traced to human factors.

Half the man-made fires have been caused by accidents and the other half were set deliberately, a forestry official said.