Tag: wildfires

  • Smoke Here, Smoke There, Smoke Was (Almost) Everywhere

    Smoke Here, Smoke There, Smoke Was (Almost) Everywhere

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    by

    Brendan Barry
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    Friday I wrote about an interactive air quality web application I designed for my website after seeing a similar type of dynamically generated graphic in my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer. I did not have a lot of time to finish the project, and so it lacked the planned overview page, where I intended to…

  • Is It Always Smoky in Philadelphia?

    Is It Always Smoky in Philadelphia?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I wrote about a Philadelphia Inquirer article, which included an interactive display showing different monitoring stations around the Philadelphia area cataloguing just how bad the Minnesota/Canadian wildfire smoke is in the region. I noted during my piece that it was unclear if the little bars were actually recording the AQI values or just a…

  • I Prefer My Smoke in My Scotch

    I Prefer My Smoke in My Scotch

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Another July day, another heatwave in Philadelphia. But this time we have the added bonus of Canadian wildfire smoke—apparently we call them wildfires and not forest fires now? Just last summer the US administration pointed the finger at Canada for not doing more to prevent and contain these wildfires, but I would humbly suggest that…

  • New Mexico Burns

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    Brendan Barry
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    Editor’s note: I was having some technical issues last week. This was supposed to post last week. Editor’s note two: This was supposed to go up on Monday. Still didn’t. Third time’s the charm? Yesterday I wrote about a piece from the New York Times that arrived on my doorstep Saturday morning. Well a few…

  • Spread of the Caldor Wildfire

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    Brendan Barry
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    I’ve been searching to see if I could find a better motion graphic of this, alas not. I saw a post on Instagram from the Washington Post that featured a timelapse video or graphic of the spread of the Caldor Wildfire. The Caldor Wildfire presently rages southwest of Lake Tahoe and has now forced the…

  • The Size of the California Wildfires Compared to Philly

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    Brendan Barry
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    The West Coast is a different scale than the East Coast. After all, California alone is almost the size of New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic combined. So when we take that enormous size into consideration, how big are these fires on an East Coast scale? It can be difficult to imagine. Thankfully the…

  • It’ll Get Cooler Eventually

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    Brendan Barry
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    President Trump, on climate change. I mean, technically he’s correct. Eventually the universe will likely end with heat death as all the energy dissipates and stars die out and space becomes a truly empty, cold void. So it’ll get cooler, eventually. But what about right now? In one to three generations’ time? 30–90 years? Not…

  • More on California’s Dry Heat

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at the wildfire conditions in California. Today, we look at the Economist’s take, which brings an additional focus on the devastation of the fires themselves. However, it adds a more global perspective and looks at the worldwide decline in forest fires and both where and why that is the case. The screenshot…

  • Dry Heat Is Only Part of California’s Problem

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    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Wildfires continue to burn across in California. One, the Camp Fire in northern California near Chico, has already claimed 77 lives. But why has this fire been so deadly? FiveThirtyEight explained some of the causes in an article that features a number of charts and graphics. The screenshot below features a scatter plot looking at…