Home/Posts Tagged ‘fire’
Posts Tagged ‘fire’
Pollution, May 7th, 2012,
On Sunday 12 people were killed and 129 injured in a fire at a chemical plant in eastern Thailand, reports Pakistan’s Daily Times. Just over two years ago I posted about Thailand’s Map Ta Phut industrial port in Rayong province and the environmental pollution the Thai petrochemical hub has wrought on the local population. This latest deadly incident at Map Ta Phut caused hundreds of residents to evacuate the area, though loud rains prevented many people from hearing the calls to leave. This prompted Thailand’s industrial minister to call for an upgrade of Map Ta Phut’s warning systems. From the…
Tags: chemical, explosion, fire, Map Ta Phut, plant, Thailand
Animal Rights, Animals, Jan 18th, 2012,
On the Eve of St. Antonio’s Day (16th January), dozens of riders jump on their horses and ride them over burning stakes, which are set alight on the streets of San Bartolomé de Pinares in the Spanish province of Ávila. This unusual festival, known as “Luminarias,” has been organized for over 500 years. Jumping through the fire is accompanied by the sound of bagpipes playing. The people of San Bartolomé de Pinares believe that the horses don’t feel any pain while they are galloping like this through the flames. Nevertheless, this annual festival meets with criticism from animal rights activists,…
Tags: animal abuse, festival, fire, horse, Spain
Videos & Documentaries, Sep 10th, 2010,
One person has died and 53 homes have been destroyed due to fires resulting from a gas pipeline explosion in the community of San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco, California in the United States. A further 30 people are reported to be injured from the explosion and an additional 120 houses damaged from the fire. Firefighters continue to battle the blaze stemming from the ruptured Pacific Gas & Electric Co. pipeline. From a Euronews report: The blaze covers an area measuring forty thousand square metres, although authorities say it is being contained. See this video report from Reuters for…
Tags: explosion, fire, gas, pipeline, San Bruno, San Francisco
Politics, Sep 2nd, 2010,
The parliament of Catalonia voted to ban bullfighting in July, a move that enraged Spain’s bullfighting community and drew accusations of Catalan nationalist motivations rather than concern for animal welfare. Well, plainly both nationalism and animal welfare played their parts in the ban – apparent by the fact that groups from both camps participated in the anti bullfighting campaign. But on the different, yet similar issue of fire bulls in Catalonia, the groups are more split. In the Catalan town of Amposta, bulls are taunted after flaming torches are attached to their horns. Another Catalan tradition involves tying ropes around…
Tags: Amposta, animal, ban, bullfighting, bulls, Catalan, Catalonia, fire, Spain, welfare
Nature, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 25th, 2010,
Brush fires and strong winds have resulted in a rare fire tornado in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The firestorm occurred in the city of Araçatuba in the northwest of São Paulo state. The region has experienced humidity levels similar to the Sahara Desert From a report by the Associated Press: A whirlwind of flame, spiralling several metres high, danced across burning fields, bringing traffic to a halt on a nearby highway, before it dissolved, as rapidly as it appeared. Though the fire tornado was brief, drought conditions are still feeding brush fires in the state. It hasn’t rained…
Tags: Brazil, brush fires, drought, fire, Sao Paulo, tornado, video
Conservation, Politics, Pollution, Aug 12th, 2010,
Record summer temperatures and drought have caused around 800 wildfires, which in turn covered Moscow in a cloud of poisonous smoke. Now some 28 fires have reached parts of the Bryansk region of Russia, which is located near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine – site of the worst nuclear accident in history in 1986. This is raising concerns that the fires could release radioactivity left over from the Chernobyl disaster, which heavily contaminated parts of Bryansk. From a Spiegel article: Earlier this week, Greenpeace Russia published a map purporting to show the extent of the wildfires which,…
Tags: agricultural, bank, chernobyl, development, fire, fires, Moscow, peat, radioactivity, Russia, SEED, smoke, Wetlands International, wildfires
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 1st, 2010,
Russia’s forests are facing threats from both development and Mother Nature. Forest fires are currently blazing in locations across the country, with the Moscow region being particularly hard-hit. An official state of emergency has been declared in 27 out of 83 of Russia’s regions and 10,000 firefighters have been deployed to fight the blazes. Unusually hot and dry weather has greatly exacerbated conditions for fires. Over 25 people have been killed because of the fires, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed and thousands of people displaced. Russia has also lost 9.6 million hectares (24 million acres) of grain crops due…
Tags: activists, developers, fire, firefighters, forest, heat, highway, Khimki, Russia, Russian, weather
Pollution, Jul 17th, 2010,
A 15-hour fire raged from Friday night into Saturday after an oil pipeline explosion at a busy port in Dalian, China. It is not known what caused the pipeline – owned by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. – to explode at the port, but the fire started after a large oil tanker unloaded its cargo. Though the fire has been put out, Chinese environmental protection officials warned that the area is still unsafe due to airborne chemicals. From an Associated Press report: State-run media said the pipeline blew up Friday evening and more than 2,000 firefighters worked overnight to…
Tags: China, Corp., Dalian, explode, explosion, fire, national, oil, petroleum, pipeline, port
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Jul 4th, 2010,
Over 230 people have been killed and 110 injured in Sange, a village in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, when an oil tanker exploded, setting the village on fire. The blast occurred late Friday evening after the tanker – en route from Tanzania –overturned and began leaking oil. The tanker had been trying to pass a bus on a dirt road in Sange. Villagers gathered around to collect some of the leaking fuel, which is a valuable commodity in the Congo. The fuel had already leaked and spread over a large portion of the village…
Tags: children, Congo, Democratic, fire, fuel, killed, Kivu, oil, Province, Republic, Sange, South, tanker, village
Climate Change, Green living, Jun 2nd, 2010,
There is something that happens in many rural areas around the globe. It’s a fairly common thing and it can also be a fairly dangerous thing, both to your health and to the environment. What am I referring to? Backyard Trash Burning. Yes, in many rural areas—small towns or out in the country—people will burn their trash. Typically, the trash is burned in a burning barrel (usually a 55 gallon metal drum), though some will also burn their garbage in boxes, a wood stove, or even a small pit dug into the ground. Items that are burned consist of things…
Tags: backyard trash burning, damage, danger, disposal, environmental, fire, garbage, hazards, Health, heavy metals, open burning, pollutants, Pollution, recycle, reduce, reuse, trash, waste
Science & Technology, May 18th, 2010,
Some people want their work to be remembered and shared with the rest of the world for centuries to come; in many cases this involves going down in a blaze of glory (so to speak). Unfortunately, sometimes that blaze is real and will consume all those years of work. A fire destroyed the world’s largest scientific collection of dead snakes, scorpions and spiders. The collection, located at the Instituto Butantan in Brazil, was almost a century-old and included nearly 80,000 snakes and several thousand scorpion and spider specimens. These specimens were a main source for research, particularly where evolution and…
Tags: Brazil, dead snakes, destroyed, fire, Instituto Butantan, scientific collection, scorpions, spiders
Climate Change, Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 21st, 2010,
An explosion and fire happened off the coast of Louisiana late Tuesday night, leaving a titled offshore drilling platform and at least 11 missing workers in its wake. The Deepwater Horizon rig, located about 52 miles from the coast, was still burning Wednesday morning. The good news is most of the 126 people on board are believed to have escaped to safety. However, they did not go unharmed. At least 7 people had critical injuries, including 2 that were taken to a trauma center and another 2 that were sent to a hospital. According to Greg Panagos, spokesman for the…
Tags: Deepwater Horizon, explosion, fire, Louisiana, missing people, oil rig, Transocean
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Mar 2nd, 2010,
A wildfire is currently raging in Western Australia, some 170 miles (275 km) north of the state capital, Perth. Though the area is mostly farmland and not densely populated, Australian Fire Emergency Services have urged residents to leave the area with ‘survival kits’ in tow. According to a Press Association report on the situation in Western Australia, wildfires are a common threat during hot Australian summers and this summer is particularly blazing, with Tuesday’s temperature predicted to hit 41 C (106 F). Last year, 173 people were killed and more than 2,000 homes destroyed in one day as hundreds of…
Tags: australia, fire, forest, logged, logging, Western, wildfires
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Feb 3rd, 2010,
Dozens of giant underground coal fires have been burning in the Indian state of Jharkhand for almost 100 years, according to a BBC News report. Attempts at extinguishing the fires have so far been unsuccessful. Now, the Indian government wants to move in and put out the fires with water and chemicals, and subsequently remove the coal. The problem is that some 400,000 people live on the coalfields – the desperately poor that survive by scavenging for coal. It is a hot, dirty and dangerous place where living conditions are beyond Dickensian, as exemplified in the town of Jharia. The…
Tags: burning, coal, coal fires, coalfields, fire, government, India, Indian, Jharkhand, poor
Videos & Documentaries, Dec 4th, 2009,
Those intrepid ‘slacker’ journalists at VBS.tv certainly have a knack for finding fascinating stories. This time it’s the curious tale of Centralia, a former coalmining town in Pennsylvania, which had an active mining industry from the mid 19th century until a mine fire broke out in 1962. It’s still burning. Watch the VBS report about Centralia below. By Graham Land Additional resources: Smithsonian Magazine – Fire in the Hole Pictures of Centralia
Tags: Centralia, fire, mine
Uncategorized, Sep 10th, 2009,
Recent images, taken beginning of September 2009, show thick smoke covering much of southern Borneo. The images, that are now available on Nasa’s “Earth Observatory” website, portray smoke that was so dense on September 6th and 7th that it literally hid the ground from view. There is no doubt that the smoke is coming from fires burning in Kalimantan, the Indonesian half of the island of Borneo. In this tropical region, the widespread fires were almost certainly deliberately set to clear land! The haze caused was dense enough to close schools and airports in Kalimantan on September 8th, according to…
Tags: borneo, carbon emissions, fire, wildfire
Uncategorized, Sep 5th, 2009,
A public reward of $100,000 (€70,000) has just been offered by California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist(s) responsible for setting the largest wildfire in Los Angeles County’s history. On an area more than 10 times the size of New York’s Manhattan island the so-called Station fire has now consumed and destroyed all growth and structures and the fire is still not contained! Read the full article here
Tags: carbon emissions, environment, fire, trees, wildfire
