Word: fire
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...acknowledge that no single weather event can be definitively caused by climate change - and it's possible that the current inferno in Australia might have been as intense and deadly even without the warming of the past several decades. Police are beginning to suspect that many of the fires may have been deliberately set, and the sheer increase in the number of homes built in fire-danger zones in southern Australia today puts more people in harm's way, raising the potential death toll. Still, heat waves and drought set the table for wildfires, and temperatures in the worst...
...hard hit by the housing crisis. In Los Angeles, calls into the suicide prevention call center run by the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center spiked 65% in the second half of 2008 over the previous year. There has also been a surge of training requests from fire and police departments from throughout Los Angeles County - even from a mortgage counseling company - to help deal with an upsurge in suicide risk. "The reality is we are already overwhelmed," says Dr. Kita S. Curry, the center's executive director. With any publicity about her center, calls spike, suggesting unmet need...
...Monday night the death toll in Australia's worst ever natural disaster had risen to 131. That number will rise as police and fire crews go deeper into the disaster zone and uncover further horrors. More than 750 homes have been razed and over 770 sq. mi. (2000 sq. km.) in the southeastern state of Victoria have been burned. "We know tragically many lives have been lost," Victorian premier (governor) John Brumby said in a television address to the state. "We have grave concerns for many more. Out there it has been hell on earth...
...fled Kingslake ahead of the flames but told of how the children of a local businessman had perished in the blaze. "He [the businessman] apparently went to put the kids in the car, put them in, turned around to grab something from the house, then his car was on fire with his kids in it and they burnt," Victoria Harvey told reporters...
...death toll from these bushfires eclipses the 1983 "Ash Wednesday" fires in Victoria and South Australia which claimed 73 people. Victorian fire researcher David Packham was so concerned with the looming conditions last week that he issued a warning about the extreme danger of bushfires. He says now that a series of factors lined up to produce the "worst fire conditions" he has ever seen. Those conditions include extreme heat, dry winds, lightning strikes and arson, and vast amounts of fuel which should have been burned off under controlled conditions by authorities he says. "I woke up one night...