July 19. The CNN World Weather. Reporting about the wide spread wild fires in Sweden. Showing a picture. From Kårböle, Sweden. With the circle and the dots.
The Europe weather map ends to the north at the south tip of Sweden. I’ve never witnessed a forecast where Sweden is mentioned. But this day the map is sliding north and the choice for the temperature graf is Stockholm. “30°C and above ( in the nineties °F) with no relief in sight”.
My balcony door and windows are open as they have been 24-7 for three weeks now. Today is rare with an overcast sky, some rain and mild thunder some miles from here. About 22°C (70°F) and a humidity of 84°. It’s muggy in a way that’s very unusual on the 64th latitude.
But there is nothing “ususal” about this summer. A normal summer on this latitude is temperatures at 15-20°C with one good high-pressure for up to a week giving us lovely warmth
Wow, the sky did just open, there was this white flash and the enormous thunder right on and above me, and the signal in my land line phone…! I am not normally afraid of thunder storms, but as I am at the end of the road and the last one on the power line, thunderstorms have a tendency of killing my technical devises. And this summer the flashes sets the dry grounds on fire everywhere. So yes, right now they make me a bit nervous.
So, where was I? Yes, a lovely warmth at a maximum of 25C/77F. If we are really lucky we might have two such weeks on a summer. 2017 was an exceptionally bad summer if you like it warm. Mostly 11°/52° and ONE DAY at 23/73. It was in August.
Summer 2018 will be historical. May, June and July have all been consistently warm and dry, peeking these last three weeks, being really hot. It’s been the warmest July in 260 years. And no rain.
And where there is dry grass, grounds and forests, there is fires.
As for today 25 000 hektar are on fire in Sweden, spread over the country. That’s 11 000 more than the 14 000 hektar burning in one place in 2014, the by then largest forest fire in modern Swedish history. Villages have been/are evacuated for days and weeks. Public messages in English and German on Swedish National Radio brings a surrealistic feeling to the sun.
Swedish first responders and voluntaries have been working around the clock in the heat of the sun and the fires for weeks now fighting the fires not to spread. The most severe of them have been too aggressive to extinguish, what you can do is draw up the lines within where they must stay.
And we are blessed with experts and first responders from all over Europe coming here helping us out. The special aeroplanes from Italy and France water bombing the fires for days and days. Helicopters from Norway. 139 Polish firefighters driving here with 44 fire trucks and terrain vehicles. 60 and 39 additional firefighters joined from French and Germany. 35 Finnish firefighters came over although fires are running in Finland as well. Even Greenland are sending 6 firefighters!
The forecast for Saturday made the crews even more on their toes. Record temperatures, hard winds and thunderstorms coming in. And yes, up to 10 000 thunderbolts across the country were registered as of this morning, and they have been continuing throughout the day and will for the next two as it looks.
But there has also been rain! And it’s been cooling off some and the humidity helps as well. So even though the night trains to Northern Sweden have been cancelled because of fires alongside the tracks not far from here, the situation on the whole looks more stable. People are allowed back home in some of the villages. What was 50 fires of which 15 were out of control a week ago today is 21 and not as bad. The Italian and French planes are off to Greece where they are more needed now. And, this far Sweden has not suffered any casualties.
My hope now is that every Swede who want’s to exit the European Union will be thinking twice. There is no way we could have done this without the water bombing planes from southern Europe. They came as life saviours for the poor people watching the fires approach their villages and homes. And the Polish firefighters were greeted all the way through Sweden. Some of the crews have been communicating in 6-7 languages and it’s amazing being touched with the hearts of all these people coming here helping us out in this crises.
Couldn’t this had happened without the EU? Maybe, but the operation would not had been as prompt and efficient. The organisation and infrastructure is right there, a decision is all it takes.
What I am saying here is: we need our friends. All of us. In good times and bad times. Sweden is not used to crises. We are usually the ones helping out. Now we know what it is like being on the other side.
So what about the firefighters from Greenland? Well it turns out Sweden was one out of several northern countries helping out when Greenland was hit by an unexpected tsunami last year. And now Greenland wanted to pay back in the way they could. That’s what friends are for!
No comments:
Post a Comment