#fires 2020

[katiekeysburg]

Fires and smoke plume on 09/14/2020 from fire.airnow.gov

How’s that climate change working out for you, America?

[natureisthegreatestartist]

What’s in the air? Fog? Mist? Nope. Smoke and ash from wildfires raging in the Pacific Northwest.

[hoothootmotherf-ckers]

help the Ventana Wildlife Society recover from the fires

California has been (and is continuing to be) devastated by wildfires. As of September 22, 2020, we’re coming up on four million acres burned. There are so many people and organizations in need of help, but this in particular is a cause near and dear to my heart.

The Ventana Wildlife Society is a nonprofit best known for their vital role in the California condor recovery program. California condors are listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN red list. How endangered is that? Well, in 1987, their population was down to 27 individuals. Today, there’s just over five hundred, and that growth is due in large part to both federal agencies and nonprofits like the VWS. The Ventana Wildlife Society manages the Central California wild condor population, in conjunction with the National Park Service, in both Pinnacles National Park and the Big Sur Condor Sanctuary. In total, they monitor 101 free-flying condors.

Or well, they did, and here’s the part where I try not to cry. On August 18, 2020, a fire now known as the Dolan Fire started in Big Sur, California. As of today, this fire has burned 200 square miles of forest, including the Big Sur Condor Sanctuary, which consists of both the Ventana Wildlife Society’s release, medical, monitoring and research facilities as well as an enormous stretch of protected condor habitat. And horrifyingly, the spread of the fire was caught on a livestreamed nest cam, and viewers around the world watched condor chick #1031, named Iniko, panic before heat destroyed the camera. The following photo, from a different livestream, shows the fire destroying the thankfully empty release facility.

These losses are quite frankly devastating. VWS has lost all of their Big Sur facilities, which will be incredibly time and cost-intensive to replace. They are a fundamental part of the recovery program, and this is an enormous setback for the species. And although thankfully all staff and volunteers of the sanctuary made it out safely, the same is not true for the condors themselves. Chick Iniko miraculously survived, but appears unwell. Two condor chicks have been confirmed dead. And nine adult condors, missing since the start of the fire, are now presumed dead. Eleven dead, of five hundred in the world. 

Ventana is already working to rebuild. They’re still searching for the missing condors, as much as the still burning fires allow. They are working with the National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other nonprofits to continue their mission despite these massive setbacks. They can come back from this, and the California condor can recover, but not without help.

If you can, please consider donating to their rebuilding fund or helping spread the word.

Thank you.

[hoothootmotherf-ckers]

tonight, like last night and I assume many nights in the future, is Time To Cry because I have to be a functional human being while the world burns around me, and man I just want to curl up in a fuzzy blanket and be a mess. 

[hoothootmotherf-ckers]

the west is burning

California, Oregon, and Washington are all being decimated by fires right now. I’m Californian, and I am safe but pretty fucking horrified, and I feel like I should signal boost this or something... but I don’t even know where to begin. This is the worst fire season on record, and we’re maybe 1/5 of the way in. Thousands of miles of land has burned. Towns have burned to the ground. People have died. I don’t even have words to express how devastating this is, especially on top of the last few years of record-breaking, devastating fires. All of California’s five largest fires have occurred in the last four years. Three of them are currently burning. And that’s just the start.

I don’t even know what to say. Every fire season is so much worse than the last and we can’t keep doing this. There are ways to help, the red cross is a start, but so many places desperately need help that I don’t even know where to begin. The sky outside is orange and it’s been dark as twilight since Tuesday. I’m going to go try not to cry.