Wildfires igniting across the globe

In the last week there have been continual news of fire outbreaks all over Spain, this news has been joined by the devastating images of the raging fires in the Amazon rainforest. Unfortunately they are not the only blazes shrouding huge swaths of land in smoke.

Wildfires also ignited this week in Alaska. Denmark dispatched firefighters to Greenland to control fires burning close to population centres. Major wildfires have also burned through Siberia, and environmental activists expect them to set a new record for burn area in Russia by the end of the season.

Statistics suggest that part of the reason for these recent fires is the heat. This past July was the hottest July on record. Many parts of Europe shattered heat records: France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom. Intense heat which has dried out vegetation and left huge areas of forests and grasslands set to ignite.

Sadly and alarmingly, as climate changes, periods of extreme heat will get longer, more frequent, and more intense. And human irresponsibility is to blame in many cases.

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Written by

Cristina Hodgson

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