- No smoke without fire - 10th January 2025
- Risk and reward - 10th January 2025
- Belated Broadcasting Corporation - 9th January 2025
As fires rip through California causing death, injury and home evacuations, angry warnings have been issued in Wales that the terrible scenes may be a sign of things to come.
One expert who advises the Welsh Government (WG) as well as local authorities in Wales told The Eye: “What we are seeing in America is awful and our first thought must be with those families, but I hope this is a wake up call, because we are already seeing a big increase in heathland fires in Wales, and with climate change it will only become worse”.
This alarm comes as the news is dominated by out-of-control wildfires which are tearing across parts of Los Angeles (LA), leading to at least 10 deaths, burning down hundreds of buildings, and prompting evacuation orders for nearly 180,000 residents.
Despite the efforts of thousands of firefighters, the biggest blazes remain totally uncontained – with weather conditions and the underlying impact of climate change expected to continue fanning the flames for days to come.
The death toll is expected to rise, while in LA county some 179,000 people are under evacuation orders and many are fleeing their homes with just the belongings they could carry.
Another 200,000 residents have been issued with evacuation warnings, meaning they could be required to leave their homes soon, and more than 10,000 structures have been razed by the fires, with a man accused of being a copycat arsonist now under arrest.
However for many these terrible details could be a glimpse of what the future may hold, building on a grim past.
US government research is unequivocal in linking climate change to larger and more severe wildfires.
“Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires…”, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared.
Wales too could be at risk in years to come, and unfortunate records for extreme weather events, as well as heathland fires, have already been set.
For example, it’s been reported online that: “South Wales Fire and Rescue Service crews have seen a rise in wildfires…”.
Their admonition comes amid news that from 2001 to 2023, Wales lost 2.05 kha of tree cover from fires, and this is likely to become worse.
In the statistical bulletin from the Welsh Government (WG), it’s been revealed that around one in five attendances by a Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA) at fires in 2020-21 were grassland, woodland or crop related.
The Welsh FRAs attended 2,232 grassland, woodland and crop fires in 2020-21, an increase of two per cent compared with 2019-20, and in previous years larger year on year percentage changes have been seen.
In the Summer of 2023 Natural Resources Wales (NRW) proclaimed: “Rhigos, Garw, Blaenllechau, Ogmore Vale, Nant y Moel, Llanwynno, Penhydd, Blaengarw … are just some of the areas where wildfires have ravaged the natural environment in Wales over recent weeks. Firefighters from across South and Mid Wales have been working around the clock to battle the flames, supported by colleagues from Natural Resources Wales and South Wales Police, in a joint effort to mitigate the impacts on communities and nature”.
It may also be necessary ‘to mitigate the impact’ of climate change if experts in Wales are right and the appalling fires in California may be a sign of things to come…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism (during which major events as in California were always reported) as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
