Fires and other disasters are increasing in Hawaii, according to this AP data analysis




KIHEI, Hawaii (AP) — Hurricane-fueled flash floods and mudslides. Lava that creeps into neighborhoods. Fierce drought that materializes in a flash and lingers. Earthquakes. And now, deadly fires that burn block after historic block.

Hawaii is increasingly under siege from disasters, and what is escalating most is wildfire, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency records. That reality can clash with the vision of Hawaii as paradise. It is, in fact, one of the riskiest states in the country.

“Hawaii is at risk of the whole panoply of climate and geological disasters," said Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the international disasters database kept at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She listed storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.

Hawaii has been in more danger lately. This month alone, the federal government declared six different fire disasters in Hawaii — the same number recorded in the state from 1953 to 2003.

Across the United States, the number of acres burned by wildfires about tripled from the 1980s to now, with a drier climate from global warming a factor, according to the federal government’s National Climate Assessment and the National Interagency Fire Center. In Hawaii, the burned area increased more than five times from the 1980s to now, according to figures from the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Longtime residents — like Victoria Martocci, who arrived on Maui about 25 years ago — know this all too well.

“Fire happened maybe once a year or once every two years. Over the last 10 years, it has been more frequent,” said Martocci, who lost a boat and her business, Extended Horizons Scuba, to the fire that swept through Lahaina.

From 1953 to 2003, Hawaii averaged one federally declared disaster of any type every two years, according to the analysis of FEMA records. But now it averages more than two a year, about a four-fold increase, the data analysis shows.

It’s even worse for wildfires. Hawaii went from averaging one federally declared fire disaster every nine years or so to one a year on average since 2004.

Watching the fires on Maui, Native Hawaiian Micah Kamohoali’i’s mind drifted to 2021, when the state’s largest ever wildfire burned through his family’s Big Island home and scorched a massive swath of land on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

Linda Hunt, who works at a horse stable in Waikoloa Village on the Big Island, had to evacuate in that fire. Given the abundance of dry grass on the islands from drought and worsening fires, Hunt said fire agencies need to “double or triple” spending on fire gear and personnel.

“They are stretched thin. They ran out of water on Maui and had to leave the truck,” she said. “Money should be spent on prevention and preparedness.”

FEMA assesses an overall risk index for each county in America and the risk index in Maui County is higher than nearly 88% of the counties in the nation. The federal disaster agency considers that a “relatively moderate” risk.

Hawaii’s Big Island has a risk index higher than 98% of U.S. counties.

A 2022 state emergency management report listed tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, health risks and cyber threats as high risk to people, but categorized wildfire as a “low” risk, along with drought, climate change and sea level rise.

Yet fire is the No. 1 cause of Hawaii's federally declared disasters, equaling the next three types of disaster combined: floods, severe storms and hurricanes. Hawaii by far has more federally declared fire disasters per square mile than any other state.

For most of the 20th century, Hawaii averaged about 5000 acres (about 20 square kilometers) burned per year, but that’s now up to 15,000 to 20,000 acres, said University of Hawaii Manoa fire scientist Clay Trauernicht.

“We’ve been getting these large events for the last 20 to 30 years," he said from Oahu.

What's happening is mostly because of changes in land use and the plants that catch fire, said Trauernicht. From the 1990s on, there has been a “big decline in plantation agriculture and a big decline in ranching," he said. Millions of acres of crops have been replaced with grasslands that burn easily and fast.

He called it “explosive fire behavior.”

“This is much more a fuels problem,” Trauernicht said. “Climate change is going to make this stuff harder.”

Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field said “these grasses can just dry out in a few weeks and it doesn't take extreme conditions to make them flammable.”

That's what happened this year. For the first four weeks of May, Maui County had absolutely no drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor. By July 11, 83% of Maui was either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought. Scientists call that a flash drought.

Flash droughts are becoming more common because of human-caused climate change, an April study said.

Another factor that made the fires worse was Hurricane Dora, 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) to the south, which helped create storm-like winds that fanned the flames and spread the fires. Experts said it shows that the “synergy” between wildfire and other weather extremes, like storms.

Stanford's Field and others said it's difficult to isolate the effects of climate change from other factors on Hawaii's increasing disasters, but weather catastrophes are increasing worldwide. The nation has experienced a jump in federally declared disasters, and Hawaii has been hit harder.

Because Hawaii is so isolated, the state is often more self-sufficient and resilient after disasters, so when FEMA calculates risks for states and counties, Hawaii does well in recovery, said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina. Still, it shocks people to think of disasters in places they associate with paradise.

“Those are places of fantasy and nothing bad is supposed to happen there. You go there to escape reality, to leave pain behind, not face it head on,” said University of Albany emergency preparedness professor Jeannette Sutton. “Our perceptions of risk are certainly challenged when we have to think about the dangers associated with paradise, not just its exotic beauty.”

Maui resident Martocci said, “it is paradise 99% of the time.”

“We’ve always felt secure about living in paradise, and that everything will be OK,” she said. “But this has been a reality check for West Maui. A significant reality check.”

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Borenstein reported from Washington and Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press reporter Mike Casey in Boston contributed.

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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. Follow Seth Borenstein and Bobby Caina Calvan at @borenbears and @BobbyCalvan.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Seth Borenstein, Mary Katherine Wildeman And Bobby Caina Calvan, The Associated Press

 

Explainer: Why does Germany rely heavily on voluntary fire services?

In Germany, volunteer firefighters perform the bulk of rescue operations, as the recent floods showed. That’s because full-time fire services are expensive to maintain.

  

Voluntary fire services are at the forefront of rescue operations in Germany's devastating floods

Fire brigades usually carry out rescue and recovery operations, extinguish fires and protect life and property. In much of Germany, however, this work is mainly performed by volunteers who often have a normal, paid job.

The volunteers carry a pager with them at all times that alerts them when there is an emergency. When it beeps, they quickly head to the local fire station and then to the scene of the emergency.

This is because most small towns and villages in Germany cannot afford a full-time fire brigade since equipment and personnel are expensive to buy and maintain. That means full-time professional fire services are often stretched thin in many regions and they can't be relied on to attend to each emergency, especially since they could be far away and need a long time to reach the site.

Volunteer firefighters, however, can often be at the scene of an emergency in just a few minutes. 

Volunteer firefighters play a crucial role in areas where professional fire brigades are stretched thin

In large cities, that is those with more than around 100,000 inhabitants, there are also professional fire departments. According to statistics from 2018, there are 104 of these in the country. But they too are often supported by volunteers. There are more than 22,000 voluntary fire services in Germany and their ranks are steadily rising.

Being part of a voluntary fire service, however, is not a hobby. Volunteers are required to take courses and participate in extensive and regular training to be able to actively fight fires or get a grip on challenging situations such as a flood disaster. They usually undergo training in their free time.

However, if there aren't enough volunteers to staff a fire brigade, a compulsory fire service is deployed. Residents between the ages of 18 and 50 are required to get trained and temporarily do the work of the fire service.

Germany's THW service is a familiar sight during emergency situations such as floods or landslides

Another organization that is similar in structure to the voluntary fire service is the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). It's officially part of Germany's Interior Ministry, but only two percent of its employees are permanent employees. The rest are volunteers.

More than 80,000 people are engaged in 668 local branches of the THW. They work voluntarily to help people in distress, performing important services like providing clean drinking water or clear roads. The work of the THW and the fire services often complement each other.

This article has been translated from German.

Colorado’s Suburban Firestorm Shows the Threat of Climate-Driven Wildfires is Moving Into Unusual Seasons and Landscapes

Backyard fences, decks and landscaping helped spread the flames through suburban neighborhoods and shopping malls baked by global warming.

By Bob Berwyn
January 7, 2022

The Marshall Fire continued to burn out of control on Dec. 30, 2021 in Broomfield, Colorado. Credit: RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

When he saw smoke in the air around Boulder, Colorado on Dec. 30, Tom Veblen walked up a trail near his home to check it out. Veblen, a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder who has been studying forest ecology, wildfires and climate change since the mid-1970s, said he could see that the Marshall Fire, on the southern edge of the city, was already jumping over distances of several hundred yards.

The winds were so strong that he said he struggled to open his car door, and to stay on his feet in the powerful gusts. Wooden fences separating yards in the suburbs sprawling in the distance looked like burning fuses, as winds gusting faster than 100 mph pushed the flames along them to ignite decks, roofs and residential landscaping. The firestorm would eventually engulf shopping malls and a hotel.

As a resident of a neighborhood he had previously believed to be a safe distance from the fire-prone forests, Veblen felt a sudden and unfamiliar sense of vulnerability.

“Sure, I knew that Chinook winds could drive winter grassland fires to spread very rapidly, but in the past we just did not have all the driving factors align so perfectly—wet spring producing abundant grass fuels, one of the warmest and driest June-Decembers on record and then an ignition at the base of the mountains.” Local topography also contributed to the intensity, with a canyon opposite the fire acting like a nozzle, blasting winds from the peaks onto the flames and pushing the fire east into suburban neighborhoods.

The Marshall Fire ultimately burned some 6,200 acres, destroying at least 1,084 homes and seven commercial structures, before it was largely smothered by a New Year’s Eve snowfall. On Wednesday, investigators reported they had found partial human remains assumed to be those of one of the two people still missing after the fire. Insured losses are estimated at about $1 billion, making it Colorado’s most destructive fire on record in terms of property loss.

In the days since the fire, Veblen said he’s had many conversations with neighbors and friends, some feeling a combination of survivor’s guilt and post traumatic stress disorder, and all wondering how worried they should be about wildfires burning into suburbia in the future.

“I told them that, this winter, we’re probably going to be OK,” he said. But with the warming and drying climate shortening the snow season and desiccating grasses and brush more each year, chances are growing that similar drought, heat and wind will align more frequently to drive wildfires into the cold seasons and developed landscapes where they were once rare.

In the meantime, few residents of rapidly expanding suburbs in which most of the vegetation has been planted by homeowners and developers realize that they are living in an expanding “Wildland Urban Interface,” or WUI, in which wildfires can threaten their homes and lives. In some areas with little natural vegetation, wooden fences and decks, wood-framed houses, flammable roofs and landscaping are the biggest source of fuel, which can burn down into glowing chunks that are lofted by high winds to help a fire hopscotch through neighborhoods.

“We could have another fire starting in Sunshine Canyon in some of those grassy areas and burn right down into Boulder,” he said. “We could call it a freak event, but we know that it’s not. It’s just a matter of those conditions setting up again.”

Jordan Hymes gets a hug from her grandmother Nancy Grigon, left, as her grandfather Guy, right, looks towards their burned out subdivision in the Coal Creek Ranch subdivision in the aftermath of the Marshall Fire on Dec. 31, 2021 in Louisville, Colorado. Hymes and her family lost their home of ten years. The fire may have potentially burned 1,000 homes and numerous business. The fast moving fire was stocked by extremely dry drought conditions and fierce winds, with gusts topping 100 mph, along the foothills. Credit: Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A visit Friday to the towns devastated by the Marshall Fire by President Biden, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Boulder), could help jump-start the conversations needed to address the threat, he said.

“The important message our society needs to hear from them is that this is an example of a climate-enabled event, and the probability of similar events will continue to increase as we have continued warming,” he said. “Unless we keep fossil fuels in the ground, these events are going to get more frequent and worse.”
New Climate, New Fuels and New Fires

“It’s clear the climate change is increasing the likelihood of these types of events,” said University of Montana fire ecologist Phil Higuera, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying the relative influence of climate, vegetation and human activity on wildfire trends.

“What I don’t want to see is a reaction of, ‘Oh, this is such an extreme event that we can’t do anything about it,’” he said. “Yes, this fire was very bad luck, but we shouldn’t be rolling the dice with fire in December.”

Yet research, including a landmark 2019 study of fire weather indices, shows that global warming is loading those dice for more winter fires. Warmer temperatures and decreasing precipitation increasingly leave fuels like trees and brush tinder dry late in autumn and early winter, and increase the probability that snow-free Decembers will leave grasses, decks and roofs uncovered and vulnerable to wind-driven sparks and embers that could ignite them.

What used to be the start of the season that brought snow to the West and cool, rainy conditions to many other parts of the country is now sometimes more like late summer. Even if global warming didn’t ignite the Marshall Fire, “there really is a seasonality change that is the main climate factor,” said UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain, who studies extremes like fires and floods. “Usually by this time of year, there is just more moisture on the ground.”

For more than 20 years the region has endured alarmingly rapid aridification that has shrunk snowpacks, dried up river flows and lowered groundwater levels. Denver, just south of the Marshall Fire, experienced one of its longest snowless stretches on record just prior to the blaze, while much of the West blistered through an extreme autumn heat wave.

Winter fires are not unheard of in Colorado, or in grassland like where the Marshall Fire was first sighted, Swain noted.

“That is not quite as surprising as what happened next,” he said. “It started there, burned a few hundred acres within 10-15 minutes, then it came across shopping malls … a significant extent of tract homes, a fair bit of vegetation in people’s yards and city parks. This is not a wild place, not a remote place.”

“That’s why we get these eerie images,” he said, alluding to social media posts of people fleeing from shopping mall pizza parlors and medical workers watching the fire from a hospital window as near-hurricane force wind gusts pushed fire and smoke plumes east into the towns of Superior, with a population of 13,077, and Louisville, with 20,860 residents.

The images of fires around shopping malls are jarring, Swain said, “And yet as bewildering as it is, we’ve seen it in any number of large, wind-driven fires in recent years.”

Swain said several recent California fires were similar to the Marshall Fire, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire that burned more than 5,000 structures in Santa Rosa, the 2018 Camp Fire that killed more than 80 people when it destroyed the town of Paradise, and the Carr Fire, also in 2018, which jumped the Sacramento River in Northern California to spread into Redding, a city of 90,000 people.

Swain said the temperatures on the day of the Marshall Fire ignited were unremarkable for December in Boulder, with highs in the 40s. But that contrasted sharply with a “multi-month period of almost continuously balmy and record-warm temperatures leading up to this event, with many days making into the 60s and 70s during October and November and overnight lows rarely getting below freezing,” he said. “It was those antecedent record warm and dry conditions that were key in setting the stage.”

And the winds that drove the fire were like nothing he had ever encountered before. “The strongest I have ever experienced anywhere in the world while outdoors,” said Swain, who had to wear protective glasses to protect his eyes from airborne pebbles and roof shingles, with gusts “rushing downward over the Front Range foothills, creating very erratic windflow and occasional tornado-strength vortices. At one point, I witnessed one of these clear-air vortices cross the road and uproot a tree.”

With the increasing confluence of extreme fire weather conditions like high winds and extended droughts and heat waves, “there are a lot of places that are at similar risk, including many of the suburban areas around the Front Range,” Swain said. “But it’s really hard to prepare. There aren’t any simple interventions.”
Preparing for Wildfires in Suburbia

One part of the solution clearly lies in revising building codes to ensure that most construction and landscaping materials are non-flammable, even in areas that appear to be far from wildfire threats, said Veblen, an expert in the geography of fire. Such measures are becoming more common in areas where fire hazards are widely recognized, and the destruction of the Marshall Fire could inform how the boundaries of those zones are drawn in the future.

Since fires cross between jurisdictions, Veblen said that state rules would be most useful, but are unlikely to happen in Colorado, a home rule state where most land use decisions are made by local governments. So that leaves it up to county commissioners, “who need to feel they have the political support of the people so they can resist the influence of the building and real estate interests, which nearly always oppose any mandatory measures that make building more costly,” he said.

A meaningful change to building practices could also be spurred by the insurance industry, which could make sure that people who, for example, build with flame-resistant brick, pay less for fire insurance policies than those who build with flammable materials.

Apart from the built environment, he said the Marshall Fire will also trigger some “serious rethinking” of wildfire mitigation and the management of open space and parklands, which are among the key amenities that make the nearby homes desirable in the first place.

“We know that up until 1950 it was mostly ranchland,” he said, with grazing cattle keeping grasses short and less prone to fire. Residential development started after World War II and accelerated in the 1970s.

“The most important thing we’ve done is change the fuels by putting structures all over the foothill ecotone,” Veblen said. Some early reports on the Marshall Fire suggest the fire may have slowed down when it reached one of the few small areas where cattle still munch the grass, so it could be that managed grazing could be a fire mitigation strategy, he added. Restoring wetlands and stream corridors to the point that they sustain live vegetation could also help by adding moist fire buffers to the landscape.

The Marshall Fire and similar blazes burning in unusual landscapes and seasons could also challenge assumptions about how to reduce the wildfire hazard in areas far from the towns that burned—the fire-prone zone where forests spill off the lower slopes of the Rockies onto the plains. There, the long-standing thinking has been to thin woody fuels.

“But if you thin out ponderosa pine, it increases resources for grass to grow,” Veblen said. “So we said, ‘Sure, let’s have some grass fires, that will be beneficial.’ But no one was thinking about this. Wow, this fire event is changing my perspective on where it is or is not safe from fire.”

Bob Berwyn
Reporter, Austria
Bob Berwyn an Austrian-based freelance reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.

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Louisiana enforcing state-wide burn ban as deadly wildfires rage, thousands remain under evacuation

Emilee Speck
Updated Mon, August 28, 2023 

Prayers for rain continue in Louisiana as more than 400 wildfires continue to envelop the Bayou State in smoke during extreme drought and heat conditions.

The excessive heat, extreme drought and low humidity levels of around 20% have contributed to dangerous fire conditions across Central and Southern Louisiana, where Fire Weather Warnings remain in place on Monday.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference over the weekend 441 different forest fires are burning in Louisiana, many burning out of control. The wildfire smoke continues to blanket Central and Southern Louisiana with moderate air quality levels based on the Air Quality Index. The air quality near Lake Charles reached "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" on the AQI as of Monday morning.

The governor said the ongoing heat wave baking Louisiana has made the firefight exceptionally difficult and increased the severity of the drought conditions.

"It's clear this firefight is far from over, just as these dangerously dry conditions are far from over," Louisiana State Fire Marshal's Office wrote on X. "As we head into another week, we pray for rain, for patience & for cooperation with the statewide burn ban."

A statewide burn ban is in place until further notice. Those who violate the ban will face charges.

Louisiana State Fire Marshal Dan Wallis said over the weekend an 84-year-old woman died after collapsing while burning debris on her Folsom property. Fire crews discovered her while extinguishing a fire on the property. She was taken to the hospital where she later died.

"Our hearts are broken for this family tonight," Wallis said in a statement. "This is a horrific situation that should stun every single person in this state. These conditions are not exaggerated and they affect every one of us, even if you can't see the flames and your community isn't under threat of wildfire today. Doing any activity involving fire right now can lead to tragedy for you, your loved ones, your neighbors and your community."

An Independence, Louisiana man was recently charged with violating the burn ban leading to a brush fire, according to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. According to a news release, the fire started when the 41-year-old man was burning trash, and the flames spread into a neighboring pine plantation owned by a local timber company, eventually consuming more than 170 acres.

Seventeen parishes throughout the state are under local states of emergency because of fires.

One of Louisiana's larger fires, the Tiger Island Fire, continues burning near Merryville. The Beauregard Parish Sheriff's Office estimates that the fire has burned more than 60,000 acres as of Monday with 50% containment.

The fire is consuming 5 miles in 15 minutes.

"This is unprecedented for this area and many of the firefighters combating this massive fire," according to the Sheriff's Office.

The Sheriff's Office issued new evacuation orders late Saturday and moved an animal shelter from the Fair Grounds to Burton Colosseum in Lake Charles because of evacuations. The sheriff's office estimates about 22 structures have been destroyed by the fire.

WHY FIREFIGHTERS ARE FIGHTING WILDFIRES WITH FIRE

A mandatory evacuation was issued for areas east of Seth Cole Road north and south of Highway 190W through to Williams/Vigor Myers Road, Maul Road and Willie Hargrove Road. A shelter is available at the First Baptist Church on the east side of DeRidder, according to the sheriff's office.

All previously issued evacuation orders remain in place.

The Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office has been sharing videos showing the extreme conditions fire crews face to contain the Lions Camp Road Fire.

Mandatory evacuations are in place for Lions Camp Road and the surrounding areas, according to Louisiana State Police.

The Louisiana Red Cross said it's seeking volunteers at shelters for evacuees.

There is some good news in the forecast early this week. A cold front brought showers and thunderstorms, across parts of the South and Southeast over the weekend, helping to relieve some of the heat. The front will drop temperatures from the triple-digits for Texas and Louisiana.

A Heat Advisory remains in place on Monday throughout portions of southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi.

On Monday, a high of 96 degrees is forecast for New Orleans with heat index values between 108 and 112 degrees.

The National Weather Service New Orleans office is forecasting some strong storms across coastal southeast Louisiana early Monday. Another round of rain is possible Monday afternoon into the evening hours.

However, widespread, measurable rain is needed to help with the firefight and drought conditions. Without substantial rain, the firefighting conditions across Louisiana will still be unfavorable.

Tiger Island Fire, largest in Louisiana's history, doubles in size

Janet Shamlian, Analisa Novak
Mon, August 28, 2023 

The Tiger Island Fire burning in Beauregard Parish, the largest wildfire in Louisiana's history, doubled in size over the weekend. State fire officials reported on Sunday that the fire expanded to cover a staggering 33,000 acres, up from an estimated 15,000 acres on Friday.

Containment remains at only 50%. At least one person has been killed and at least 20 buildings have been destroyed.

The fire forced the entire town of Merryville, home to 1,200 residents, to evacuate Thursday night.

The Tiger Island Fire was one of four major wildfires burning in Louisiana Monday morning — and one of hundreds that have charred parts of the state this month. Louisiana, which is accustomed to dealing with hurricanes and floods, not fires and drought, has witnessed an unprecedented 441 fires in August.

"While we're pretty good and practiced at emergency response, not so much on the wildfires," said Gov. John Bel Edwards.

The state has faced scorching temperatures this summer. Last week, Edwards declared a state of emergency because of extreme heat and believes that some of the fires could have been prevented if residents had adhered to the statewide burn ban which has been in effect for weeks.

Monica Hickman, a displaced resident who evacuated her home and then her brother's home, said she fears the fire's spread.

"This is so scary to think that we could lose our homes," she said.

Hickman, like countless others, is praying for rain and help to stop the fire's destructive path.

"It's not just for my home. It's not just for my family. It's for my community," she said.

How Is Climate Change Affecting Floods?

Like other extreme weather disasters, flooding involves a number of competing factors that may affect its frequency intensity.

Flooding on Forest Park Parkway in St. Louis after heavy rains on Tuesday morning.

Credit...KMOX St. Louis

By Elena Shao
July 26, 2022

Floods can surge all year round, in every region of the world. But discerning the relationship between any given flood and climate change is no small feat, experts say, made difficult by limited historical records, particularly for the most extreme floods, which occur infrequently.

It can be tempting to attribute all floods and other extreme events to the forces of warming planet. But weather is not climate, even though weather can be affected by climate. For example, scientists are confident that climate change makes unusually hot days more common. They’re not as sure that climate change is making tornadoes more severe.

Floods fall somewhere along the confidence spectrum between heat waves (“yes, clearly”) and tornadoes (“we don’t know yet”), said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California, Los Angeles. “I’d say, ‘yes, probably, but…’”

Flooding, like other disasters, involves a number of competing factors that may affect its frequency and intensity in opposing ways. Climate change, which is worsening extreme rainfall in many storms, is an increasingly important part of the mix.

What causes floods

Northeast Entrance Road in Yellowstone National Park after historic flooding. Credit...Samuel Wilson-Pool/Getty Images

Several main ingredients contribute to flood development: precipitation, snowmelt, topography and how wet the soil is. Depending on the type of the flood, some factors may matter more than others.

For example, a river flood, also known as a fluvial flood, occurs when a river, stream or lake overflows with water, often following heavy rainfall or quickly melting snow. A coastal flood occurs when land areas near the coast are inundated by water, often following a severe storm that collides with high tides.

Flooding can also happen in areas with no nearby bodies of water. Flash floods, in particular, can develop anywhere that experiences intense rainfall over a short period of time.

How floods are measured

Many metrics are used to measure floods, including stage height (the height of the water in a river relative to a specific point) and flow rate (how much water passes by a specific location over a particular time period).

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Safety Tips: Here is some advice on staying hydrated, keeping cool and taking care of your pets during a heat wave.

To describe the severity of a flood, though, experts will often use the more simple term “a 100-year flood,” to describe a flood that has a 1 percent chance of striking in any given year, considered an extreme and rare occurrence. The term is just a description of likelihood, though, not a promise. A region can have two 100-year floods within a few years.

Have floods increased in past decades?

Residents assessed the flooding outside of their home in Far Rockaway, Queens, in October 2021.

Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Not exactly. Climate change has undoubtedly intensified heavy precipitation events, but, unexpectedly, there has been no corresponding increase in flood events.

When it comes to river floods, climate change is likely exacerbating the frequency and intensity of the extreme flood events, but decreasing the number of moderate floods, researchers found in a 2021 study published in Nature.

As the climate warms, higher rates of evaporation cause soils to dry out more rapidly. For those moderate and more commonplace floods, the initial conditions of soil moisture is important, since drier soils may be able to absorb most of the rainfall.

With larger flood events, that initial soil moisture matters less “because there’s so much water that the soil wouldn’t be able to absorb all of it, anyway,” said Manuela Brunner, a hydrologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany and the lead author of the 2021 study. Any additional water added past the point where the soil is fully saturated will run off and contribute to flood development, Dr. Brunner said.

Looking to the future

Scientists are confident some types of flooding will increase in the “business as usual” scenario where humans continue warming the planet with greenhouse gas emissions at the current rate.

First, coastal flooding will continue to increase as sea levels rise. Melting glaciers and ice sheets add volume to the ocea
Second, flash flooding will continue to increase as there are more extreme precipitation events. Warmer temperatures increase evaporation, putting more moisture into the atmosphere that then gets released as rain or snowfall.

Researchers also expect that, as the climate warms, flash floods will get “flashier,” meaning that the timing of the floods will get shorter while the magnitude gets higher. Flashier floods can be more dangerous and destructive.

Flash floods may also increasingly follow catastrophic wildfires in a deadly cascade of climate disasters. That’s because wildfires destroy forests and other vegetation, which in turn weakens the soil and makes it less permeable.

If heavy rains occur on land damaged by a fire, the water “does not get absorbed by the land surface as effectively as it once did,” said Andrew Hoell, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Sciences Lab.

Though it may be counterintuitive to see the two extremes, too much fire and too much water, in the same region, the sight will most likely become more common, particularly in the American West.

Emergency workers in Windsor, New South Wales, Australia, on Monday, where flooding brought by heavy rains forced 50,000 people from their homes.

Credit...Bianca De Marchi/EPA, via Shutterstock


Are different areas experiencing flooding?

In a recent paper published in Nature, researchers found that in the future, flash floods may be more common father north, in Northern Rockies and Northern Plains states.

This poses a risk for flood mitigation efforts, as local governments may not be aware of the future flash flood risk, said Zhi Li, lead author of the 2022 study.

The pattern is driven by more rapidly melting snow, and snow that melts earlier in the year, Dr. Li said. Regions at higher latitudes may experience more “rain-on-snow” floods like those that surged through Yellowstone in June.

Indigenous fire keepers and ecologists say it's time to light a careful fire to calm wildfires

Yvette Brend - Yesterday - CBC 

With a deft swing of a drip torch, Joe Gilchrist ignited sagebrush near Savona this spring, just northwest of Kamloops. B.C.

In seconds, an angry crackle grows into a tongue of orange flame, fluorescent against the dusty landscape of the Skeetchestn Indian Reserve in central B.C.

Gilchrist — a fire keeper — sets fires to fight wildfires and "cleanse" the land.

He is one of about 20 members of the growing Interior Salish Firekeepers Society and part of a growing movement. Indigenous knowledge keepers and fire ecologists are reigniting an ancient practice outlawed during colonialization when he says at least one fire keeper was hanged for setting fires.


© Harold Dupuis/CBCFirekeeper Joe Gilchrist demostrates how a cultural burn is started in a pile of sage brush near Savona, B.C.

This June, British Columbia earmarked $359 million for future wildfire protection, with $1.2 million invested in burn projects this year. The province says it supports cultural burning which is prescribed by the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act Action Plan (UNDRIP).

But fire ecologists say that support is falling short and plans to burn often fizzle out because of approval delays.

In B.C., hundreds of thousands of hectares used to be deliberately burned each year, but now fewer than 10,000 hectares of land is set on fire for community protection.

In the past two years, the Ministry of Forests says burn projects have doubled — rising from 33 to 69 between 2021 and 2022. This year, a total of 9,100 hectares of planning burning was tracked, but not all of it was burned due to weather or safety issues.

Worst wildfire seasons in B.C. by area burned, in sq. km.

The ministry says it's supportive of Indigenous-led burning, which is eligible for funding under the Community Resiliency Initiative program, and the province has worked with First Nations in the Fraser Canyon, the Okanagan, the Kootenays, the Cariboo and Chilcotin and the Pemberton Valley.

Minister of Forests Katrine Conroy said in a statement: "Last year's devastating fire season highlighted the importance of wildfire prevention for B.C. communities and, as we saw first-hand in places like Logan Lake, how it can make a real difference for people's lives."

Earlier in June, Conroy said the province earmarked $25 million for the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. for programs to reduce wildfire risk, including prescribed and cultural burning.

But fire keepers say that support is too limited.

"Commitment has been really minimal, but I think that it's growing," said Gilchrist.

Fire keepers and ecologists say more needs to be done, and fast, with the province experiencing the biggest wildfire season ever recorded in 2018 — after more than a million hectares burned.
Use fire to fight fire

A record-breaking heat dome in 2021 made things worse. A year ago, temperatures soared to 49.6 degrees C in the town of Lytton B.C., before wildfire incinerated the community, killing two residents.

Scientists who study fire say it's time Canada learns from other fire-ravaged places on the planet that are aggressively using fire to fight fire.


© Harold Dupuis/CBC

Firekeeper Joe Gilchrist uses a drip torch to start a burn near Savona, B.C.

Cultural or Indigenous burning to mitigate wildfires is seeing a resurgence from California to Australia as the climate crisis makes summers hotter and drier, upping the ferocity of wildfires.

Wildfire burn area by hectare in B.C. since 1970

Gilchrist says setting controlled fires helps reduce fuel for wildfires where the land is so dry little rots.

"If it's not burned it just piles up," he said.

"It just takes a lightning strike or human accident for a catastrophic fire."
Controlled fires help calm wildfires

The baritone-voiced "elder in training" warns visitors to watch for baby rattlesnakes in the tall grass that's sprouted in the two months after this swath of land was burned in April. It creates a green buffer slowing any wildfire.


© Andrew Lee/CBC

Joe Gilchrist is a traditional burning knowledge keeper from the Skeetchestn Indian Band in central B.C

"The Indigenous use of fire needs to be legalized. Under-burning in the forest isn't bad. We're not trying to kill trees. We are just trying to bring back the medicine and the forage and to make the communities safe because there's going to be a lot less fire," said Gilchrist.

Chilliwack wildfire ecologist Robert Gray says cultural burning dates back "hundreds of thousands of years" and enabled Indigenous communities to evolve and thrive.

Traditionally, Indigenous fire keepers — often a hereditary position — lit fires to clear debris that can fuel angrier fires. This was done to renew crops and grazing land and for safety. Examples of the practice can be found around the world.

"We need to significantly increase the pace and scale of cultural and prescribed fire," said Gray.

Training, funding needed fast

But Gray says to burn even 50,000 hectares in the next decade will require at least 17 specially trained teams in B.C.

He says Canada is far behind the U.S. where there are an average of 150,000 prescribed burns each year, which cover between four- to six-million hectares, with very few fire escapes.


© Yvette Brend/CBC News

Firekeeper Joe Gilchrist points to an area in Savona, B.C. Skeetchestn Indian Reserve in central B.C. that was burned in April was a rich green by June.

Although Indigenous firekeeping practices were banned in B.C. when settlers arrived in the 19th century, burning did not stop.

Over the past half-century, forest land was often slashed and burned to prep land for tree planting or clear brush for safety.

In recent years, guide outfitters burned to create better wildlife habitat.

During the 1970s and 1980s, up to 100,000 hectares were prescriptively burned each year, but that's fallen to less than 10,000 hectares a year in the past decades, according to provincial data.

Lessons from Australia

Australian native William Nikolakis is the executive director of the Gathering Voices Society, which works with First Nations to rebuild their territorial stewardship. The assistant professor with the University of British Columbia's forestry department says the most fire-prone continent on the planet is rejuvenating Indigenous knowledge, using "cool" or controlled fires.

"Fire is a tool that was used across the world — it's just that the practice has been lost in a lot of ways and stopped because of people and property," Nikolakis explains.

In Australia over the past decade, Indigenous-led fire projects have employed thousands of people burning more than 17 million hectares of Northern Australian land and generating millions of dollars in Australian Carbon Credit units.

Here in B.C. starting in 2019, Gathering Voices has worked with Tŝilhqot'in Nations of Yunesit'in and Xeni Gwet'in. They've gone from burning 15 to 250 hectares in a year.

Nikolakis says his society brought in Australian Indigenous burning guru Victor Steffensen to help with training.

"We've had people as young as eight, nine come out and they put fire to the land to remove, to clean the landscape, remove dead grasses, brush things that have trees that have died. We reintroduce fire back onto the landscape to make it healthy," said Nikolakis.

Fire escapes are always a concern so it's a "slow and careful" process.

But Nikolakis said lack of funding and onerous approval processes make it impossible to burn in many parts of B.C., where Indigenous communities are often the most vulnerable to fires, floods and extremes of climate change.
More than community safety

Russell Myers Ross, who was chief of Yunesit'in First Nation for eight years, grew up near Williams Lake in central B.C., where he says wildfire has changed most people's lives.

He says getting burns approved often takes too long and crucial windows in spring and fall, are missed.

"We have a chance to restore areas that haven't been taken care of for a long time," said Myers Ross, whose daughter and elders all help with the cultural burning projects.

He says it's a way to "cleanse" the land and reclaim a caretaking role.

"Our ancestors have done this … the real problem was that we have been doing it almost since contact, or since our communities were disrupted."


© Yvette Brend/CBC NewsA swath of forest burned black in the 2021 fire season is carpeted with green and bordered by lupines near Coldwater Creek, south of Kamloops, B.C. in June of 2022.

Special thanks to CBC's Gilbert Bégin and Simon Giroux, of La semaine verte, for sharing footage shot in June for an upcoming documentary.

A new immersive cinema is helping firefighters to better prepare for megafires

The Conversation
September 30, 2024 

Man with fire Photo: Shutterstock

As summer approaches, the threat of bushfires looms. Earlier this month, an out-of-control blaze in Sydney’s northern beaches burnt more than 100 hectares of bushland, threatening nearby homes.

Climate change is making bushfires larger, hotter and faster. Previously unthinkable catastrophes, such as the “Black Summer” megafires in Australia in 2019/2020 and the ones that ravaged Maui, Hawaii, in August 2023, are becoming more common.

Firefighters put their lives on the line to battle these fires. Yet many are not meaningfully and comprehensively prepared to respond to erratic and extreme conflagrations. This increases their chances of being injured, or worse. It may also hinder their ability to make the best decisions.

To help address this, the University of New South Wales’ iCinema Research Centre has created iFire. This cutting-edge training system allows firefighters and emergency responders to virtually teleport into a burning landscape and train for the real thing. It could revolutionize the way we prepare for other natural disasters as well.
Megafires are becoming more common

The rate of extreme fire events has doubled over the past decade. These fires can combine with the atmosphere to produce their own weather systems, generating multiple fire fronts. As the planet continues to warm, this situation will only get worse.

Much current research is focused on understanding these worsening fire threats. This is vital. But data and charts don’t meaningfully prepare firefighters for how to respond to such extreme, unanticipated fires.

“Experiential preparedness” is the missing element.

It helps firefighters prepare by virtually experiencing and rehearsing how to respond to real and future extreme fires through immersive scenarios. This can be done in a large-scale, three-dimensional cinema or on a smart tablet or phone.

Simulating the fireground

The iFire collaboration builds on iCinema’s award-winning iCasts immersive training system for mine workers.

Since it was developed in 2008, iCasts has exposed and trained thousands of miners and planners in simulations of known threats before they go underground. This has resulted in a dramatic reduction in serious injuries at Australian mine sites and many lives saved.

iFire takes a similar approach. It uses a combination of mathematical modeling of actual fires provided by CSIRO’s Data61 research institute, advanced visualization and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to recreate immersive simulations of three real case studies: a pine plantation fire, a grass fire and the 2020 Bridger-Foothills fire in the United States.

The system puts fire crews in the centre of these simulated firegrounds using immersive cinematic scenarios. The crews feel as though they are physically present. They can experience the fire from any point of view – aerial or on the ground – at any point in time, and interactively engage with it.

Importantly, the scenarios are not static reproductions of past events. Fire crews and incident commanders can adjust variables to experience the influence of changes in conditions. For example, they can change the air temperature or wind direction and see how this affects the dynamic behavior of the fire in real time.

This allows them to better perceive risks and practice making key decisions in preparation for when they are on the actual firegrounds and under enormous pressure to act fast.
A more advanced system

iFire is already in the hands of those who need it. It has recently been installed at the Fire and Rescue NSW Emergency Services Academy in Sydney using a 130‑degree, three-dimensional, cinematic theatre.

The UNSW iCinema Centre and Fire and Rescue NSW will use iFire to develop training modules for frontline response. These modules will provide simulations where fire crews practice how to be situationally aware in the face of an unpredictable fire situation. They learn how to make the best decisions in managing the unfolding fire.

But the iFire team is working towards building a more advanced AI system that learns the underlying and unforeseen patterns of fire behavior to create more precise and detailed simulations of these unpredictable fires.

This will enable incident commanders and firefighters to engage with unanticipated fireground threats and better prepare to protect people and property under threat from flames.

The longer-term goal is that the iFire system will ultimately enable firefighters on a tablet or any other smart screen device in any location to experience the look and feel of a possible future fire scenario in real time. This won’t be as immersive, but it will be effective for use in the field when managing a fire and will improve tactical and strategic responses.

Although iFire has been specially designed for firefighters, the technology behind it can be tweaked for many purposes. For example, it can be used to help better train and prepare emergency service workers for other natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes.


Dennis Del Favero, ARC Laureate Fellow and executive director, iCinema Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney, and Yang Song, Scientia Associate Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

'A year-after-year disaster:' The American West could face a 'brutal' century under climate change

Elizabeth Weise
Sat, April 2, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO – The West, once a beacon for all that was new and hopeful in America, could become an example of the grim, apocalyptic future the nation faces from climate change.

The last five years already have been harrowing.

Whole neighborhoods burned down to foundations. Children kept indoors because the air outside is too dangerous to play in. Killer mudslides of burned debris destroying towns. Blood-red skies that are so dark at midday, the streetlights come on and postal workers wear headlamps to deliver the mail.

And it's going to get worse unless dramatic action is taken, two studies published this week forecast.

The first predicts the growth of wildfires could cause dangerous air quality levels to increase during fire season by more than 50% over the next 30 years in the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern California.

A second shows how expected increases in wildfires and intense rain events could result in more devastating flash floods and mudslides across a broad portion of the West.

“These studies reinforce the likelihood of a brutal future for the West,” said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist and dean of the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability.

"Even climate scientists are scared," he said. If climate change isn’t curbed, a “dystopian” landscape could be the result.

El Dorado County firefighters battle a fire close to a home off of U.S. Highway 89 in the Christmas Valley community near Meyers, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 30, 2021.

Deadly mudslides: More Americans are threatened as heavy rains loom over scorched lands

Each study, based on evermore-precise climate modeling, follows previous research showing the recent red skies, torched forests and neighborhoods, and catastrophic flooding and mudslides could be the new normal unless carbon emissions are halted soon.

“These papers echo an overwhelming trend,” said Rebecca Miller, who studies the impact of fire on the West at the University of Southern California. “Fires and their impacts are getting more severe and are projected to just get worse, becoming a year-after-year disaster.”

What this means for the West, home to 79 million people, is in some ways a return to the past.

“When you moved to the West a century ago, it was an inhospitable place. There was an underlying danger," said Bruce Cain, director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. "We’re returning to that.”

The dire consequences, however, may be an incentive for Americans to take meaningful climate action.

“It’s a kick in the pants to get stuff done,” Cain said.
Bad air days

Rising levels of dangerous particles in the air due to smoke from wildfires are a growing threat not just in the American West but across the country, the paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science showed.

In just the last five years, the West saw a series of historically large and destructive fires that burned millions of acres, destroyed thousands of homes and killed hundreds of people. The annual area burned by forest fires in the region has increased tenfold over the past half-century.

The smoke from those fires turned skies red and was so pervasive that Pacific Coast cities from Los Angeles to Seattle kept children indoors during recess and canceled sporting events. Residents were advised not to go outside and to tightly close windows and doors. Sales of air filters skyrocketed.

Downtown Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium are shrouded, looking south from Elysian Fields through the smoke from the Bobcat and the El Dorado fires, Friday, Sept. 11, 2020.

'It could happen tomorrow': Experts know disaster upon disaster looms for West Coast

By the end of the century, these kinds of dangerous, polluting fires could occur every three to five years across the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern California, the study by scientists at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found.

“These unhealthy particle pollution levels that occurred in the recent large fires may become the new norm in the late 21st century,” said Yuanyu Xie, a researcher in atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Princeton and one of the paper’s authors.

The scientists modeled several scenarios. In what’s known as the “middle of the road” climate change scenario, in which carbon emissions don’t start to fall before mid-century and don’t reach net-zero until 2100, the models show smoke pollution increasing by 100% to 150%.

In the “business as usual” scenario, in which society doesn’t make concerted efforts to cut greenhouse gases, smoke increases 130% to 260%.

The danger stretches across the United States. Wildfire smoke can travel hundreds and even thousands of miles. In July, smoke from Western wildfires triggered air quality alerts and caused smoky skies and red-orange haze in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston.

Staten Island ferry commuters take in the view of the Statue of Liberty seen through the haze on July 20, 2021, in New York. Smoke from wildfires across the U.S. West, including Oregon's Bootleg Fire, has wafted over large swaths of the eastern United States. New York City's skies were hazy with smoke from fires thousands of miles away.

“It’s not simply a health threat to people who lives in Western states. We’re seeing impacts hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away,” said the American Lung Association's senior vice president for public policy Paul Billings.

The particles in smoke can penetrate deep into the lungs, creating and exacerbating multiple health issues.

“It can cause asthma attacks, strokes, heart attacks and increases in cardiovascular problems,” said Billings. There's also evidence that smoke may impact pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Cloudbursts, floods and mudslides

A second paper, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, modeled two separate trends in the West – increasing "fire weather" and increased extreme rainfall events – that together spell trouble.

In the past, extreme rainfall was unlikely to follow a major wildfire, but the one-two punch is becoming more common and can be a dangerous combination.

Westerners have long lived with so-called fire weather, times of exceptional heat, dryness and wind that increase fire danger. The National Weather Service even produces fire weather forecasts. The researchers' models show that these extreme events will increase in the coming decades.

Extreme rain: How a summer of extreme weather reveals a stunning shift in the way rain falls in America.

At the same time, the frequency and intensity of extreme rain events are projected to also increase in much of the western United States, the study showed. By mid-century, midsized heavy rain events are expected to increase by more than 30%.

“It’s like rolling dice, you have your set of fire dice and your set of rain dice. Sometimes it comes up fire and rain in the same year,” said Samantha Stevenson, a climate modeler at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a co-author of the paper.

That poses an additional risk to anyone living downhill from charred areas. Fires destroy vegetation that holds soils in place and can sometimes harden the ground, lessening its ability to absorb water. Both contribute to the possibility of catastrophic flash floods and what scientists call debris flows.

“It’s a mixture of rocks, soil, vegetation and water that’s moving downhill at a rate you can’t outrun,” said Matthew Thomas, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “A flood can inundate a home, but a debris flow can take it off its foundation.”

Models run by scientists predict that in the Pacific Northwest, more than 90% of fire weather days will be followed within six months by extreme rain events. Over five years, almost all fire weather will be followed by at least one extreme rainfall event – and it can take that long for scorched land to recover.

The findings were similar, though less extreme for California and Colorado.

The results surprised Danielle Touma, an environmental engineering researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who co-authored the paper.

“Seeing the numbers on your screen, it’s quite shocking,” she said.

The phenomenon is already visible.

A man stands in a roadway flooded by Issaquah Creek and takes photos Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, in Issaquah, Wash. Heavy rain sent the creek over a major roadway, under an apartment building east of Seattle and up to the foundations of homes as heavy rains pounded the region. A flood watch was in effect through Friday afternoon across most of western Washington.

A USA TODAY investigation last year found that between 2018 and 2021, fast-moving debris flows have damaged and destroyed hundreds of homes, closed major transportation routes across at least three states and caused more than $550 million in property damage. Close to 170 people have been injured and 28 people died since 2018.

Last year, flash floods in Colorado’s Poudre Canyon killed at least three people. It occurred in the burn scar left by the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire, the largest recorded fire in Colorado history.

In 2018 the Montecito mudslide killed 23 people near Santa Barbara, and properly loss claims totaled $421 million. It came just a month after the Thomas fire, one of the largest in state history, killed two people, destroyed at least 1,000 structures and cost $1.8 billion in property damages.

The speed at which wildfires have worsened across much of America has exceeded predictions by the scientific community, said Overpeck.

“If anything, the theory and the models were underestimating how hard and fast these impacts would accumulate,” he said. “Mother Nature is making that crystal clear.”


San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood at 9:55 am Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday, September 9, 2020. Smoke from numerous wildfires over a layer of marine fog turned the sky an eerie orange color. Cars were using headlines and some street lights were still on.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Climate change: The West to see worse air pollution, fires and floods

Contact Elizabeth Weise at eweise @usatoday.com

Flood waters can cause electric vehicles to catch on fire — And some did after Ian. Here's why experts aren't particularly alarmed.

Elizabeth Weise
USA TODAY

In rare cases, flooded electric vehicle batteries can catch fire and burn
Eleven EV fires have been confirmed in Florida after Hurricane Ian caused extensive flooding.

An EV that has been flooded should not be driven until it's been checked out by a certified technician.

A small number of electric vehicles in Florida burst into flame during flooding caused by Hurricane Ian, and the fires are raising awareness about a previously little-known safety issue for the millions of Americans who have bought or are thinking of buying an EV.

They are also generating political heat, with some Florida Republican lawmakers calling for more regulatory oversight for electric vehicles.

Florida's State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis tweeted, "there's a science experiment taking place in Florida with EVs and salty storm surge waters."

But experts note all vehicles use concentrated power sources — whether gasoline, diesel or electricity — making them all vulnerable to ignition.

Statistics compiled by AutoInsuranceEZ found that for every 100,000 EVs there are about 25 fires, compared with 1,530 car fires in the same number of gas-powered vehicles. Gas-powered cars typically catch fire due to fuel leaks or crashes.

Here's what to know about the fires in Florida:

What happened to flooded EVs in Florida?

Hurricane Ian struck Florida's Gulf Coast on Sept. 28, killing at least 136 people, causing catastrophic damage worth more than $50 billion and flooding large areas.

The storm's floodwaters also caused at least 11 electric vehicles to catch fire.

As of Oct. 26, USA TODAY has been able to confirm 11 cases in which EVs caught fire in Florida after flooding from Ian, all believed to be due to the cars' battery packs shorting out after being submerged in saltwater or physical damage to the batteries during the flooding.

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Six of the fires were reported by the North Collier Fire Rescue District based in Naples, Florida, and another four by other Collier County fire departments, said Heather Mazurkiewicz, public information officer with the North Collier Fire Control Rescue District. One additional fire was reported in Sanibel Island by the Sanibel Island Fire and Rescue District.

No deaths have been linked to the fires. The Sanibel Island incident caused a fire that gutted the house the car was parked in and the house next door. There have been no reports of electrocutions linked to flooded electric vehicles.

While the danger of fire due to flooding in EVs has been known to experts since at least Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Hurricane Ian has put the issue front and center for the public.

"This is really the first time we had flooding in an area with a lot of electric cars," said John Linkov, deputy auto editor for Consumer Reports. Florida has the second-highest number of EVs in the nation after California.

Americans have had more than 100 years to get used to the safety issues gas-powered vehicles can pose. Now there is a learning curve for vehicles powered by batteries, said Thomas Barth, chief of the special investigations branch of highway safety at the National Transportation Safety Board.

"I don't want to give the impression the sky is falling," he said. "But they have their own set of dangers."

Why do flooded EVs catch fire?

If an electric vehicle’s battery is damaged by a collision or water intrusion from a flood, a short circuit can occur, which causes the cell to discharge energy and heat up. This can lead to an event called “thermal runaway,” in which the heat propagates from one cell to the next, causing them to burn.

In a small number of cases when an EV is submerged in water, contaminants or salt in the water can cause short-circuiting, especially after the water drains from the battery.


Vehicles or batteries that have been damaged also have the potential for short-circuiting to occur due to movement of the vehicle or battery, for example when it's being loaded or unloaded from a tow truck.

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Heat generated from a fire, thermal runaway of an adjacent cell, or shorting of the battery can melt the porous membrane between the battery’s cathode and anode, causing this cell to go into thermal runaway. The heat causes the cell to vent flammable gas, which can ignite and catch fire.

"That heat can get transferred to the next cell and it can become a chain reaction," said Barth.

"If you have a damaged lithium-ion battery and it has energy which remains in the battery pack, we call that stranded energy," he said. "If you initiate a thermal runaway or venting of the flammable gas, the battery can ignite."

Did a high percentage of the EVs in Florida burn?

Social media posts claiming EVs catch fire "often" overstate the problem, say experts.

Collier county, which includes the city of Naples, had 2,490 electric vehicles registered as of July 2021, said Stan Cross, electric transportation policy director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

That would mean a fraction of a percent of the EVs in the county caught fire after the flooding.

In Lee county, where Sanibel Island is located, there were 2,683 EVs registered last year. The one EV that burned there would mean less than 0.04% of the electric vehicles in the county caught fire.

There was also a report by the local paper, the Island Reporter, that several flooded electric golf carts at The Dunes Golf & Tennis Club also caught fire, on Oct. 16.
What should I do with a flooded EV?

Electrical corrosion may not be visible, and an EV can experience thermal runaway hours or even days after flood waters recede.

This means flooded EVs parked in garages or carports next to homes should be moved away from buildings. These cars should not be driven but must be towed. Experts cautioned that no car, whether electric of gas-powered, should be driven after flooding until it has been checked out by a professional.

"No road vehicle should be considered roadworthy after saltwater flooding, whether it's an EV or anything else," said Haresh Kamath, director of distributed energy resources at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif. "If you've experienced saltwater flooding, you should not be driving or trying to drive or even start that vehicle. You shouldn't be getting into the vehicle."

On Sanibel Island, which was heavily damaged by Ian, Sanibel Fire Rescue District crews have towed between 20 and 25 electric vehicles from garages or under residences to prevent possible structure fires, the agency said in a Facebook post.

The cars are being moved at least 15 feet away from buildings.

Are EV fires hard to put out?

EV fires are more difficult to put out than ones in gasoline-powered cars and require different firefighting techniques, say experts.

Firefighters are already training on how to deal with EV battery fires, said Andrew Klock, senior manager of product and development for the National Fire Protection Association.

The biggest difference is that an EV fire cannot be put out with the type of firefighting foam used to smother other fires. Instead, the battery must be cooled to stop the fire and end thermal runaway, he said.

"Lithium-ion batteries generate their own heat and oxygen," said Klock. To stop the fire requires putting water on the battery case to cool it.

Most EV batteries are underneath the vehicle, so pouring water on top of the car or in the engine compartment is not helpful, he said.

"You need to get the water underneath," said Klock, whose organization provides training materials for fire departments on how to deal with all types of fires.

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All car and truck manufacturers are already required to create emergency response guides for first responders on how to deal with everything from safely extricating someone from a crashed car to high-voltage disconnect instructions.

A 2020 report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that more information about dealing with battery fires was needed.

"We’ve had excellent response from that guidance, a lot of the vehicle manufacturers have rewritten their emergency response guides or are in the process of doing that," Barth said.

In addition, a group of federal, state and private company experts has come together to address the issue of EVs and hurricanes and are working on it now, he said.
Aren't there protections built into the batteries?

EV batteries are specifically engineered to make thermal runaway "very, very rare," said Kamath.

"The safety systems inside a lithium-ion battery generally prevent that type of thing happening unless there is some significant physical damage to that battery," said Kamath, who has worked on battery issues for more than 20 years.

In the case of a crash, modern electric cars are designed with fuses that are triggered if the airbags deploy, said Barth.

"Essentially, they're cutting the high voltage lines to the motor that turns the wheel," he said. "If you crash, you don't want the high voltage lines powered up that could energize the chassis and shock someone."

EV batteries are designed with seals to protect against water intrusion, said Stu Fowle, a communications director with General Motors.

"Our tests include extremely dry conditions and water submersions to simulate flooding, validating the safety and isolation of systems," he said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The fact that only eleven EV fires have been associated with Hurricane Ian is telling, said Marc Geller, with the Electric Vehicle Association.

"If a ton of flooded EVs were catching fire, we'd certainly hear about it," he said.
Is it safe to charge an EV in a flooded area?

If the car itself wasn't flooded, then yes, it is safe to charge.

If the charging station flooded, it shouldn't be used – and will not work, said experts. The safety mechanisms built into any system that flooded should have automatically shut it off, said Kamath.

"They have done a lot of engineering to make sure that in the event of flooding or something that would interfere with the operation, the system shuts down," he said.

Are flooded conventional cars ok?

No vehicle, whether powered by gasoline or a battery, is safe to drive after being flooded, multiple experts warned.

"Just like flooding is the end of the road for a gasoline-powered car, it’s the end for electric cars too," said Brian Moody, executive editor for Autotrader.

"Many of the same problems that plague a gasoline-powered car are an issue no matter how the car is powered. The dash, gauges, heating system, brakes, wiring, seats, radio, touchscreen, all those components will be ruined by water, especially salt water," he said.

Better driver education for EV owners

Electric vehicles are increasingly popular in the United States, reaching a record 5.6% of all new cars sold in the United States in the third quarter of 2022, according to Kelley Blue Book. In 2021, there were 321,546 EVs sold in the U.S. So far this year the number stands at 546,664, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Estimates put the number of electric vehicles on U.S. roads at somewhere between one and two million. That's a far cry from the 286 million total cars registered, but does mean an increasing number of Americans are driving battery-powered vehicles. There's a learning curve, say experts.

Florida has the second-highest concentration of electric vehicles after California, said Cross. As the state, and the nation, face the possibility of more floods, getting new EV owners up to speed will be necessary.

Most Americans grew up with gas-powered vehicles and have at least some understanding of their dangers — even if it's only having seen movies where a gas leak from the tank of a damaged car precedes a billowing cloud of flame.

With so many new EVs on the road, and drivers new to electric vehicles, learning about their differences is important.

"With all new technologies, there will be problems to work out. With EVs, though the problems are few, they are headline-catching and life and property-threatening," said Cross. "You can't hide from that. It's a problem, it needs to be addressed."

Elizabeth Weise covers climate and environmental issues for USA TODAY. She can be reached at eweise@usatoday.com.