RIO DE JANEIRO – By this time of year, rain should drench large parts of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rain at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of rainforest that normally doesn’t burn. The fires have turned the end of the dry … Read more
Texas is no stranger to winter wildfires, but the ferocity of the Smokehouse Creek fire — the state’s largest ever after burning more than 1 million acres — caught even experts off guard. Its severity was due to a perfect storm of environmental factors: highly flammable grasses and high winds, combined with record high temperatures … Read more
Abnormally warm temperatures, dry grass and a sudden windy cold front combined to create conditions for the devastating wildfires that have raged in parts of Texas this week. The winds that swept wildfires across the Texas Panhandle struck at the perfect time of day for destruction, “like a hurricane making landfall at high tide,” Texas … Read more