French firefighters face 'pyrocumulonimbus' for first time

verzali

The situation in Bordeaux right now feels close to apocalyptic. I left yesterday. Two hundred thousand people are evacuated, hundreds of homes destroyed, and the fire about 10 miles from the edge of the city.

superkuh

There's a good chance that conflagrations during WWII generated such clouds. There are well established incidents of such in Germany (and Japan) (ref: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/91/9/2010bam... , Hamburg, Dresden, etc) but nothing for certain in France. The British attacks on Royan which destroyed 85% of it with high explosive and napalam would be the most likely site.

ynac

Just had the same here in Washington state for the Little Giant fire. Great image in the article. We had another fire cloud behind Rainier the other day, and saw it from the Rount Mainier farm - it really looked like the volcano was smoking up and ready to top-off. <clench> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/little...

touwer

Don't look up

cineticdaffodil

So, if you used climate credits, to build up those forrests. Do they get nil and void, if those forrests burn up?

pelasaco

That's remember me of https://www.france24.com/en/20190824-macron-france-brazil-bo...

tcp_handshaker

If you the are in the area and hesitating to evacuate, or if you want to realize what terrible phenomenon you are you facing. Watch this great documentary about the tragedy that unfolded in Portugal a few years ago. Leave now. "Witness to Disaster | National Geographic" - https://youtu.be/clTeqIpGBeU https://youtu.be/clTeqIpGBeU?t=1734

ares623

One of the biggest lies is that these events will only happen (or will happen first) to the "global south" and only affect the "other peoples". Unfortunately for us, the Earth has no preferences and doesn't run on our schedule.

j1elo

Spain is also completely on fire - there's a website that collects all official information and locates every fire on a map: https://xn--incendiosespaa-2nb.es/ (in Spanish) It is disheartening to see how everything is basically in red.

Dibby053

For context on why this region is burning so easily: the Landes and Médoc are huge, artificial pine forests created in the 19th century under Napoleon III to drain and reclaim what was considered an inhospitable wetland, where shepherds famously walked around on stilts. Pine resin and needle litter makes it exceptionally flammable, and being an uninterrupted monoculture on flat land it lacks natural barriers to stop the fire from advancing.

chewbacha

I’m sure if we build a few more AI data centers the world will cool down and we’ll stop having all these fires. Just a few more GPUs ought to fix it.

ButlerianJihad

Google Maps provides overlays for wildfires and air quality. I can watch Western Europe from here.

donohoe

67 comments. One mention of “climate crisis” (appropriate), 3 of “climate credits”. No one here is really discussing “climate change”. Is it denial, or just that we’ve accepted the obvious?

senderista

I will be surprised if the climate crisis doesn’t eventually escalate to the point where basically everyone agrees that geoengineering of some kind is worth the risk.

moralestapia

>it is a war-like scenario where we are under constant bombardment and must get everyone to safety Thank you for your service everyone, these are real life heroes like the ones you see on Star Wars movies but real.

falloon

Pedantic cloud enjoyer here, the article should name this a pyrocumulus not pyrocumulonimbus - the nimbus part means 'rain-bearing' in meteorology, fire clouds don't rain.

locusm

We get these in the Australian bushfire season, the weather systems they create can flip a 10 tonne fire appliance. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/31/volun...

holografix

“Australia enters the chat”

PAndreew

I hope I'm not the only one who wanted to check PyPi to see what package is this... '-.-

madhu_ghalame

This is a reminder that wildfires are becoming more unpredictable than ever.