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Deep underneath the sodden soils and the berms of snow that now coat California, fuels for fire are waiting to sprout. Grasses and other quick-growing vegetation, spurred by the downpours that saturated the state at the start of the year, quickly turn to kindling as the weather warms.
“When that rain comes – and it came last month – that results in significant fuel load increases,” said Isaac Sanchez, a CalFire battalion chief. “[Plants] are going to grow, they are going to die, and then they are going to become flammable fuel as the year grinds on.”
While experts say it’s still too early to predict what’s in store for the months ahead and if weather conditions will align to help infernos ignite, it’s clear the rains that hammered California this winter came as a mixed blessing, delivering badly needed relief while posing new risks. Along with seeding the tinder of tomorrow, the inclement weather hampered efforts to perform essential landscape treatments needed to mitigate the risks of catastrophic fire.
“That is now the reality of the environment in the state that we live in,” Sanchez, added. “We are constantly facing a double-edged sword.”
Reservoirs are more robust than they have been in years. The snowpack, which will slowly release moisture into thirsty landscapes through the spring and summer, is 134% of its average for April, giving the state an important head start. The rains also bumped California out of the most extreme categories of drought, according to the latest analysis from the US Drought Monitor.
But the storms also left behind a dangerous mess.
Strong winds ripped trees from their roots and tore down branches, littering ignition opportunities throughout high-risk areas. Through the slopes and mountainsides, saturated earth crumbled, chewing gaps through roads and highways and hindering access. If these issues linger into the summer and autumn months, they could augment fire dangers.
A tree which toppled during recent storms sits next to the road on 11 January, in Santa Cruz, California. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
The deluges also washed out winter plans for prescribed burning – which are often years in the making.
“Those big rains effectively shut down our ability to broadcast burning across the landscape,” said Scott Witt, deputy chief of pre fire planning at CalFire, a division that focuses on mitigation. Adding controlled fire to landscapes is a proven strategy that both creates healthier, more resilient forests and also reduces fuels that can escalate fire severity, but conditions have to be right before they are set.
Landscapes that are too wet won’t burn and high moisture levels can also increase smoke output during a burn, putting the plan at odds with air quality control. Stormy conditions – especially wind – can make them too hard to control.
Other types of treatments, including those that use machines to clear vegetation from overgrown landscapes, were less affected but the storms caused issues with access, Witt said. “We have had areas that have been damaged to the point where roads were washed out, so roadwork needs to be done prior to us bringing resources in,” he said. “The heavy rains do have the potential of limiting or adjusting where we do our treatments.”
Data from the agency, published on Friday, shows the number of treatments conducted by the state and its affiliates in December and January is roughly 50% lower than it was the year prior.
There may still be time to amp up the work if conditions are favorable through the spring, and the state was able to do more work than expected during a dry fall. But there is a lot of ground to cover and the state is already playing catch-up after more than a century of fire suppression left forests overgrown and primed to burn.
One of the many rockslides on highway 154 after the storms that shut down the highway between Santa Barbara and Solvang/Santa Ynez. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Now, the climate crisis turned up the dial. Spiking temperatures now pull more moisture out of plants, landscapes and the atmosphere, setting the stage for once-healthy ignitions to turn into infernos. The sisyphean task of treating and retreating the lands is a daunting one, especially now that there’s even more fuel on the ground after the storms – and time is running short.
It takes just days for smaller plants to dry after the rain stops, Witt said, “and dead grasses will start to dry out within an hour or two”. It’s not yet clear whether California will get much more of a dousing before spring. The heavy snowpack could help delay the onset of risks but “if we continue to stay in a dry pattern – even though we had a really strong beginning of winter,” Witt said, “we could easily have an early fire season”.
Noting the urgency, Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson with the United States Forest Service who is based in California, said the outlook was not as grim as it might appear. There was still a lot that could happen before the onset of high-risk weather.
The cold, rainy conditions also helped forests recover from the drought, which will make them more burn-resistant. Water tables are looking far better and bug species that wreak havoc on vulnerable trees are being better kept at bay. “There is a lot of good news ecologically and we can’t separate that,” she said, noting that the boost may not go as far as it might have in a world without climate change.
“And as far as getting the work done, we just have to remember it is a long-term process,” she added, emphasizing that the effects of landscape treatments must be measured across decades, not years. “It took 150 years to happen, and it is not going to be fixed in a season.”
The 132,000-acre Rancho San Fernando Rey, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, now has a lush and abundant river running through it, thanks to the rains that filled the usually dry valley. Photograph: Amy Katz/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
Acknowledging that the storms affected the agency’s ability to conduct landscape treatments this winter, she said there’s still a lot of work being done. “It doesn’t really have any bearing on what we will be able to do in the spring or how fire season will look in the summer and fall,” she said. “It is way too early for us to anticipate how this is going to affect fire season.”
What will have greater bearing on fire risks this year is the conditions that align come summer and fall – and those are harder to predict.
“There’s a lot left to luck,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, echoing Freeman. Last year, when risks were high and the winter was dry, timing fell in California’s favor. Fewer catastrophic fires erupted and, while there were high-severity burns that were deadly and destructive, the acreage scorched by the end of the year was only a fraction of what it was in years past.
This year the conditions are very different. Going into spring with more snow, and wetter soils, different kinds of risks remain. “It speaks to our need to continually think about fire,” Quinn-Davidson said. While the weather will do what it will, more than can be done to prepare for the worst. That includes building on the growing momentum to perform more prescribed burns and other treatments, to champion fire-ready communities, and listen to and learn from Indigenous leaders who performed cultural burns for centuries before white colonizers disrupted essential and natural cycles on the lands.
With harder-to-predict weather patterns, agencies and organizations charged with this work will have to be nimble. “We really need to be ready when the windows present themselves to take advantage of them,” she said, adding that this is where community-based fire management groups – which are sprouting up all over the state – shine.
That’s what gives her hope. Even if some conditions can be left up to chance, there is a lot that can be done. “We have a lot of power and ownership,” she said, noting that landscapes are shaped by people. It will be up to people and communities to ensure the tools are in place to prevent the worst kinds of fires from erupting “We just have to have our hearts in the right place.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Hyderabad: A 28 year old habitual offender was arrested by the Neredmet police on Sunday for criminal trespassing into a house and intimidating the victim with a sword.
The accused, Bodusu Kalyan demanded cool drinks free of cost and when the complainant refused to comply with the demand, the accused pelted him with cement bricks. As a result, the complainant and her son suffered injuries on parts of their body.
In a separate case, a victim went to Vinayak Nagar to bring breakfast to his wife when the accused Kalyan noticed him and wrongfully restrained him. Further, the accused assaulted the complainant with his hands and kicked with legs. The accused extorted the amount of Rs 2300 from the pocket of complainant by showing a sword with dire consequences of life threat.
Bodusu Kalyan is habitual offender and has earlier been involved in several criminal cases such as physically hurting, trespassing property and such. A rowdy sheet was opened against him at Neredmet police station.
Kalyan has been arrested for his role in the above two cases and is being produced before the court. He has been booked under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Indian Arms Act.
Islamabad: Pervez Musharraf’s Afghan policy of siding with the US in its war on terror after the 9/11 attacks while also going soft on the Taliban proved a double-edged sword for his country as the extremist group turned against him and carried out terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
Musharraf, the 79-year-old bespectacled mustachioed four-star general of the Pakistan Army, died at the American Hospital in Dubai on Sunday, following a protracted illness.
The former military dictator of Pakistan and the architect of the Kargil War in 1999 seized power after a bloodless military coup in 1999 and remained in charge until 2008.
Musharraf’s time in power was shaped by the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. The attacks were masterminded by al-Qaeda’s deceased leader Osama bin Laden, who the Taliban were sheltering in Afghanistan, a country that shares a long border with Pakistan.
“America was sure to react violently (after 9/11), like a wounded bear. If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaida, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us,” Musharraf wrote in his autobiography titled In the Line of Fire’.
According to the book, the then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Musharraf after the 9/11 attacks that Pakistan would either be “with us or against us”.
Musharraf alleged later that another US official, whom he did not name, had threatened to bomb Pakistan “back into the Stone Age” if it went against the US policy in Afghanistan.
Irrespective of the nature of US messaging, the invasion of Afghanistan might not have come at a more appropriate time for Musharraf, who after the military coup was still groping in the dark for legitimacy.
He jumped on the US bandwagon, opening Pakistan’s door for the US dollars and its border for the fleeing militants, including those belonging to the Taliban and al-Qaeda groups.
The decision had far-reaching consequences. The extremist groups in Pakistan turned against him, and not only provided support to the Afghan militants but also started attacks inside the country.
Due to the local dynamics and porous border with Afghanistan, Musharraf could not stop this.
The western nations cried foul and blamed him for the “double game” but they failed to break the nexus between Pakistan and the Taliban. The latter ultimately returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, long after Musharraf had vanished from the political scene.
Pakistan was used as a transit for NATO and US forces in Afghanistan. And Musharraf tolerated attacks launched by US forces against suspected militants in Pakistan’s rugged border areas.
Musharraf’s Afghan policy exposed the vulnerability of Pakistan to militant outfits like Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that emerged on the scene in 2007.
According to various estimates, Pakistan has suffered economic losses to the tune of more than USD 125 billion and lost over 80,000 in the US-led war on terror.
Musharraf’s death coincides with the resurgence in terrorism. With the Afghan Taliban demurring to take action against the TTP, Pakistan is feeling a sense of betrayal.
The TTP has been blamed for several deadly attacks across Pakistan, including an attack on army headquarters in 2009, assaults on military bases and the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
In 2012, Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai was attacked by TTP. In 2014, the Pakistani Taliban stormed the Army Public School in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 150 people, including 131 students.
The TTP, which is believed to have close links to al-Qaeda, has threatened to target top leaders of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s PML-N and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s PPP if the ruling coalition continued to implement strict measures against the militants.
Musharraf has said in the past that under his regime, Pakistan had tried to undermine the Afghan government led by ex-president Hamid Karzai for helping “India stab Pakistan in the back”.
The former military ruler said in an interview in 2015 that spies in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had given birth to the Taliban after 2001 because the Karzai- government had an overwhelming number of non-Pashtuns and officials who were said to favour India.
Musharraf was accused of complicity in the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. He stepped down in 2008.
He was later charged with treason for imposing emergency rule, and fled Pakistan in 2016, spending his final years in exile in the UAE. He tried a comeback in 2012, which failed.
Musharraf’s years in power have his defenders. The economy grew during his leadership, while the country was seen as strategically important.
Musharraf, who was born in New Delhi in 1943 and fled to Pakistan in 1947, was the last military dictator to rule Pakistan.
The famous saying “The pen is mightier than the sword” comes to mind quite often in cricket. One does not use this phrase in a literary way in cricket but more as a verbal and mental dual between cricketers and the press. The press covers the spectrum of written and verbal cricket experts and critics.
The recent tete-a-tete in a press interview with Rohit Sharma in which he was livid when asked about his recent century in One-day International cricket against New Zealand. Although it was his 30th one for India, it was scored after a period of three years. Sharma, quite understandably, was upset and stood to explain the time gap vis-a-vis the number of matches he had played. One could gauge his anger and fury against the broadcasters and he made no bones about it.
Unfortunately, the battle between the press and the players has been an ongoing one for many decades. One talks of it being constructive criticism but not many can take it and it is not accepted as gospel truth by the cricketers.
A player, quite naturally, wants to do well and when one fails or performs badly the last thing one wants is for someone to rub salt into one’s wound. Whereas the journalist or broadcaster is doing one’s job of relaying what one feels, it is at the end their analysis of the situation.
This is the basic point of issue between the two. As much as praise, any adverse reporting by one remains embedded in a cricketer’s mind. It is the adverse reporting that comes forth strongly when one is down and many cricketers show their frustration and anger on account of it.
Recently, Virat Kohli also went through a series of disappointments with journalists and critics questioning his form and performance. There has not been a single cricketer who has not gone through it, even the great Sir Donald Bradman fell a victim to it. Cricket is a game of uncertainties and however good one may be, the Sword of Damocles is always hanging over a player’s head. When it strikes, it always leads to mayhem.
The problem that arises is when the press and the broadcasters are biased and unfair in their criticism. This, somehow, comes forth even though one tends to look at things with an open mind.
In India, with our multi-cultural background, there is always that element of empathy that arises and favours an individual from one’s region. This is a human tendency which attaches one from one’s childhood.
The Indian cricket selectors are a good example of it. The committee is formed on a zonal basis and it comprises a person from the North, the South, the East, the West and Central India. This itself spells regional bias, as a selector from a particular zone is there to represent one’s region. Their primary aim is to ensure that the maximum number of players from their region get selected.
When a batsman or a bowler does well one often sees them making a gesture towards the direction of the pavilion, the press and the broadcasters. At most times this is to indicate and emphasise as to how they have been proven wrong.
The zonal bias also exists amongst the press. A relationship that builds up between a player and a reporter tends to bind each other from the time when a cricketer from a particular city/ region makes one’s mark. The “Bandhan”, as one can refer to it gets closer as cricketers progress in their journey. Favouritism, quite naturally, comes forth with flourishing articles about the cricketer. Awareness by the strength of print and social media has engulfed us presently. The might of the pen is what could make or even break a player.
A cricketer is always apprehensive about reporters who have not played the game. There comes that tingling doubt as to how one could write on a subject that one has not actually experienced. Great writers of the past who had not adorned the cricket flannels, were brilliant narrators and ones who could put into words the visuals that took place on a cricket ground. The subtlety and artistry of a batsman’s stroke and the variations and speed or spin of the bowlers were beautifully articulated. They were great in bringing about the romance of the game.
In today’s television and broadcasting world, there has been a complete about-turn as regards reporting. The visual is there for all to see and therefore, the only outcome from the reporting is to analyze and discuss. This has brought the former cricketers to the fore, as broadcasters. They too find themselves in a very delicate position. If they criticize a player, they find themselves on the other side of the fence, both with the individual, as well as the team. One gathers in the past, there have been incidents where reporters and even former players are considered “taboo” and kept at an arms-length because of reporting against an individual or a team.
In the days gone by, especially before the advent of a full-fledged multi-media disrupted world, there was a healthy relationship between the players and the press. One did encounter criticism when one failed and one did feel hurt reading the penned article. However, the same journalist would be prepared to praise one and accept his folly when one did well. There seemed to be a more mature interaction and a player very often took it as a challenge to prove the journalist wrong.
The pen and the mike will always be mightier than the sword. They remain in the archives for years to come. In cricket, one was always taught that runs and wickets are all that matter in the end. To keep on scoring runs and taking wickets is the only way a cricketer can be heard.
One of the most famous quotes from the book ‘Beyond the Boundary’, by a social and political writer and not a cricketer, C.L.R. James, comes to mind, “What do they know of cricket that only cricket know?”
(Yajurvindra Singh is a former India cricketer. The views expressed are personal)
New Delhi: Currently out on parole, Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was seen “celebrating” by cutting a cake with a sword.
The Sirsa-Dera chief who is serving a 20-year jail term for rape and murder, walked out on a 40 day parole from the Sunaria Jail in Haryana’s Rohtak district on Saturday and arrived at his Barnawa Ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat.
A video of the celebration by Ram Rahim with the giant cake has gone viral on social media.
बागपत में डेरा सच्चा सौदा प्रमुख गुरमीत राम रहीम ने तलवार से काटा केक, केक काटकर सन्त शाह सतनाम का मनाया जन्मदिन, बाबा राम रहीम के केक काटते और खाते हुए का वीडियो किया गया पोस्ट #ramrahimparolepic.twitter.com/A8DPgZiN9M
In his bail application, Ram Rahim had said that he wants to attend an event to mark the birth anniversary of former dera chief Shah Satnam Singh on January 25.
In the purported video that has surfaced on social media, the Dera chief can be heard saying, “Got a chance after five years to celebrate like this so I should cut at least five cakes. This is the first cake.”
Incidentally, public display of weapons i.e cutting a cake with a sword is prohibited under the Arms Act.
Ram Rahim had on Monday virtually inaugurated a mega cleanliness campaign organized by his sect’s volunteers across multiple locations in Haryana and in some other states. A few senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders from Haryana, including Rajya Sabha MP Krishan Lal Panwar and former minister Krishan Kumar Bedi, also participated in the event.
This is the fourth time in the last 14 months and the second time in less than three months that Ram Rahim has been granted parole. Earlier, he was released on parole for 40 days in October 2022 ahead of the Haryana panchayat election and the Adampur Assembly bypoll.
He was convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in August 2017 for raping two women followers. CBI had registered the case on the orders passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in 2003 and taken over the investigation of the case earlier registered at Police Station Sadar in Kurukshetra.
It was alleged that Ranjit Singh, a resident of village Khanpur Kolian, Kurukshetra was murdered on July 10, 2002, when he was working in his fields at village Khanpur Kolian of District Kurukshetra in Haryana.
After a thorough investigation, CBI filed a charge sheet in 2007 against six accused and charges were framed in 2008 while, on October 8, 2021, the court convicted Rahim and four others in connection with former Dera manager Ranjit Singh’s murder case.
