Important Takeaways:
- Homes now threatened as LA wildfire grows to 15,000 acres and 1,200 are evacuated
- The blaze, nicknamed the Post Fire, started on Saturday afternoon in Gorman, an hour north of Los Angeles, and quickly rose to a 3rd alarm brush fire as it engulfed 500 acres and threatened structures. By Monday morning, the blaze had grown to 15,610 acres, with some 50 homes being threatened.
- Over the weekend, authorities evacuated residents who live in Hungry Park Lake, as crews worked to construct perimeter fire lines around the blaze.
- Airtankers were also working to stop forward progress but had limited visibility as the fire moved southeast toward Lake Pyramid. The lake was subsequently closed as firefighters worked to battle the flames.
- By Monday, authorities reported that the fire was eight percent contained. No fatalities have been reported in connection with the blaze but one person has been injured.
- An evacuation order remains in effect for Hungry Valley Park and Pyramid Lake
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel has insisted that it must invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people had sought refuge, in order to accomplish its core objective of “eliminating” Hamas’ presence in the enclave after months of fighting further north.
- But Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday that even a full-scale ground assault on Rafah would fail to achieve that goal.
- Israel is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
- “Even if it goes in and takes heavy action in Rafah, there will still be thousands of armed Hamas left,” Blinken said, noting that “we’ve seen, in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Younis, Hamas coming back.”
- Blinken said that instead of focusing on an assault on Rafah, Israel should prioritize presenting a credible post-war plan for Gaza.
- Talks for a new cease-fire deal have seemingly broken down, and President Joe Biden threatened last week to halt the shipment of certain arms to Israel should it launch a full-scale assault on Rafah.
- Nearly 360,000 people have fled the city since Israel ordered a partial evacuation a week ago and sent tanks in, according to the United Nations.
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Important Takeaways:
- Southern California wildfire prompts evacuation order for thousands as Santa Ana winds fuel flames
- Hundreds of firefighters aided by aircraft on Tuesday battled a wind-driven wildfire that damaged or destroyed at least nine buildings in rural Southern California and prompted authorities to order 4,000 residents to evacuate.
- Gusty Santa Ana winds spread the Highland Fire over about 4 square miles (10 square kilometers) of brushy hills near the Riverside County hamlet of Aguanga after it broke out Monday afternoon.
- Three structures were confirmed destroyed and six others were damaged, Riverside County Fire Department spokesperson Jeff LaRusso said.
- By nighttime the fire was 10% contained but still threatened nearly 2,400 homes and other buildings, according to an update from fire authorities.
- The cause of the blaze was under investigation.
- Power utility Southern California Edison was considering cutting electricity to nearly 55,000 customers in four counties to prevent fires in the event wind damages equipment. Only a few dozen customers were affected by public safety power shutoffs as of Tuesday night.
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Important Takeaways:
- More than 20,000 Canadians have been ordered to flee their homes amid ‘out of control’ wildfires that now threaten to cut off access to the only highway out of the affected city.
- Thousands evacuated Yellowknife, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories, on Thursday as wildfires burned across the region, forcing convoys of vehicles to snake south to safety on the only open highway.
- Evacuation flights also took off from the local airport in the latest chapter in a terrible summer for wildfires in Canada – the worst fire season on record. Residents of the regional capital have been given until noon Friday to leave.
- Northwest winds over the next two days will send the fire ‘in directions we don’t want,’ said Mike Westwick, Northwest Territories’ fire information officer.
- Across the wider territory, 6,800 people in eight other communities were also forced to evacuate their homes, including the small community of Enterprise, which was largely destroyed
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Important Takeaways:
- New video shows Lahaina residents bobbing in choppy ocean after jumping into water to escape Maui fire that killed 55 and counting
- The fire began on Tuesday, spreading quickly and ferociously. The exact cause of it remains unclear but high winds, dry conditions and low humidity exacerbated the flames.
- Fifty-five people have been confirmed dead already and 1,000 remain missing three days on from the blaze.
- In an interview this morning, the Mayor of Maui County said the bodies found so far have all been discovered in the street, outside properties. Search teams have not yet begun pulling bodies from homes and businesses.
- An unknown number of people are also thought to have perished in their cars while trying to escape the hellish flames.
- ‘I think that number could go up. According to those doing the recovery – our police, Coast Guard and National Guard, that was the number they found of people outside of the buildings. We have not yet searched the interior of the buildings. We’re waiting for FEMA to help with that search.
- ‘They are equipped to handle the hazmat conditions of the buildings that have been burned,’ Mayor Richard Bissen told the TODAY show.
- The West side of the island remains without power, water and communications.
- ‘They have no internet, no cell phone. That’s the challenge. We’ve been sending crews out with water…but our focus is on finding any missing persons. We want to give people information.’
- ‘This was an impossible situation. The winds that hit us on that side of the island, the gusts were up to 80mph. Some sustained up to 45 and 60 mph. Everything happened so quickly.
- ‘I can’t comment on whether or not the sirens sounded or not but the fires came up so quickly and spread so fast. ‘
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Important Takeaways:
- Raging Portugal wildfires force hundreds of tourists to flee apocalyptic inferno
- Hundreds of terrified tourists have been evacuated from dream holidays in southern Portugal after wildfires continue to rage out of control.
- The huge blaze has destroyed thousands of hectares of land in the area of Odemira, in the Alentejo region, since the disaster started on Saturday. It has now spread south towards the Algarve, prompting the evacuation of 1,400 people which includes tourists staying at four resorts in the holiday destination, as well as 19 small villages.
- Efforts by hundreds of firefighters to control the flames are being hampered by high temperatures which have reached 40C and strong winds. Satellite photos showed huge amounts of smoke billowing from the areas.
- Civil Protection commander Jose Ribeiro said there was still a “lot of work” to do to bring the wildfire under control.
- August is usually the hottest month of the year in Portugal.
- The huge fires in Portugal follows extreme weather in July which caused havoc across the planet, with record temperatures recorded in China, the United States and parts of southern Europe.
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Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- Wildfire Near Athens Forces Evacuation of Seaside Resorts
- A wildfire broke out near Athens on Monday as a heatwave grips the country, firefighters said, with several seaside resorts ordered to evacuate as a precaution.
- The blaze started in Kouvaras, 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Athens. “It’s a difficult fire, the winds are really strong” with gusts reaching up to 60 kilometres (37 miles) per hour,” said Yannis Artopios, a firefighters’ spokesman.
- Greece, along with Italy and Spain, has been gripped by a heatwave since last week, with temperatures reaching 44C (111 Fahrenheit) in the center of the country.
- Seven water-bombing aircraft, four helicopters and 150 firemen backed by 30 colleagues from Romania were fighting the flames on two fronts, local media reported.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- The United States has been planning a potential evacuation of its citizens from Taiwan over the past six months amid heightened tensions over the island between Washington and Beijing, media reported on Monday citing three US officials.
- Among the reasons for starting the preparations, American intelligence officials also cite the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the rapprochement between Russia and China.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. has intensified plans to evacuate Americans living in Taiwan, The Messenger reported.
- The plans, which have been underway for at least six months, have “heated up over the past two months or so,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Messenger.
- The report came a day after Taiwan’s air force scrambled into action after spotting 10 Chinese warplanes crossing the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait, as the island’s defense ministry said four Chinese warships also carried out combat patrols.
- The intelligence official told The Messenger that a “heightened level of tension” had driven the evacuation preparations.
- Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was involved in the 1975 evacuation of Americans from Saigon. He told The Messenger that planning for an evacuation from Taiwan “is a very prudent thing to do.”
- “The fact that the U.S. is doing this doesn’t mean that they expect there will be a war,” Cancian told The Messenger. “It’s only a statement that there could be a war.”
- As of 2019, more than 80,000 Americans were in Taiwan.
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Luke 21:25 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves
Important Takeaways:
- Bomb cyclone slams into San Francisco with hurricane force winds killing one person and plunging over 230,000 into darkness – as yet ANOTHER major storm of year hits California
- A ‘bomb cyclone’ slammed into San Francisco Tuesday evening…devastating the region with hurricane-force winds and torrential rainfall.
- The weather front is the latest major storm to hit the region this year, where it unleashed flash floods and blistering wind gusts throughout the Golden State.
- At least one person died after the gusts – which reached upwards of 78mph – caused a tree to fall near Portolla Valley.
- More than 230,000 residents across California had their power wiped out in the storm.
- Evacuation orders were issued in Santa Cruz County as torrential rains battered the coastal region
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