🌬 🔥 🇺🇸 The disappearance caught live

📎 WindyCity Weather and News

🌡 🇫🇷 🌾 The before and after of France from late May to mid-July is jarring after a string of unprecedented heatwaves.

Over 2,000 are estimated to have died in the country during the record-breaking June heatwave.

Agricultural losses are likely in the billions of euros.

📎 Colin McCarthy

🌡 🇬🇧 🌾 England is being crushed by drought after three brutal heatwaves since May.

Over 8 million UK homes now have hosepipe bans due to low reservoir levels.

Natural England has declared an "exceptional" wildfire risk, its highest tier, across much of England.

📎 Colin McCarthy

🌬 🔥 🇨🇦 This aerial footage was captured by Scott Hatton, who said that it shows smoke rising from fires in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

At least 183 wildfires were burning in Ontario as of Wednesday, July 15.

Credit: Scott Hatton via Storyful

📎 FOX 9

📝 🔥 🇨🇦 Canada Is Primed to Burn. Why Aren’t We Ready?

Canada divides its wildfire-fighting responsibilities among provinces and territories, with a federal division for parks. How each agency manages its fires varies—Yukon, for example, lets most of its fires burn, jumping in only when they get close to urban areas, whereas BC and Alberta try to suppress the majority of fires wherever they are. Budgets and staffing are also decentralized, with each province and territory owning and contracting out their own firefighters and fleets of air tankers as needed.

When every wildfire fighter within Canada is deployed (NPL 5), CIFFC turns to countries like Australia, Mexico, and South Africa for help, a backstop that Canada has been increasingly leaning on. Between 2015 and 2022, the most international firefighters in Canada at any time was 785, with a yearly average of 350. In 2025, that number was 1,279. Two years before, during 2023’s record-breaking year for wildfires, it was 4,464.

A centralized, national body could make sure the country has a united and consistently funded approach to prevention and suppression, say advocates. Rather than coordinating scattered resources and personnel across jurisdictions with their own priorities and budgets, like CIFFC, it would have its own. They believe that if wildfire management was integrated into other national-priority areas like housing, infrastructure, green technology, health, and employment, there would be fewer gaps in resources and decision making.

Currently, Canada is the only G7 country that does not have a national agency to respond to wildfires. After the devastating 2023 fire season, then BC member of Parliament Richard Cannings called on the government to establish a national, non-military forest fighting force to be deployed when needed to support provincial teams. This prompted a survey by Abacus Data, which polled 1,500 Canadians and found that three in four are in support. An analysis of the data suggested that summer’s fires “left a lasting impression on the public consciousness, emphasizing that wildfires are not isolated incidents but a national problem requiring a national solution.”

📝 Maxwell Schaeffer: Ontario cut their forest firefighting budget by $42M last year.
And in 2023, “Canada’s wildfire season released the equivalent of the annual fossil fuel emissions of India.”

📝 Hotshot Anon: "Giant ass megafires shouldn't even be a thing. Nearly every forest that is managed, or has been managed in the past will explode because what should be a normal understory burn becomes an uncontrolled disaster. Poor logging habits compounded by the literal hippy environmentalist retards of the 1960s. A huge wave of legislation was passed in like the 70s and 80s to impair logging, and most companies basically just dropped everything and walked off. Most forests in the US are ugly and unhealthy. They're overgrown and scraggly, or sparse and overwhelmed. Where there should be ponderosa trees there are ugly field oaks; where there should be cottonwoods and birches there is barren soil. Decades of fire suppression has ensured the opposite of healthy resilience. In the east, they have terrible bugkill. Agencies typically don't do serious post-fire rehabilitation. We've taken natural fire out of the equation and now forests are slowly dying from poor care and misplaced priorities."

"Climate change is basically a slur for me at this point. Fires are getting larger and more dangerous because there isn't anything substantial being done to mitigate fuel loading and availability. Grass gets greener and grows taller; brush, vines, and smaller species grow thicker and die and are grown over by more of their offspring; and trees are haphazardly allowed to grow in dense stands with variable or no substantial forester oversight. Log-decks, slash piles, dead-and-down, harvest piles, junk wood that's piled high, all of these are growing because there isn't enough fire to keep fuel loading low. Fires aren't isolated, tragic events that just happen. I'd recommend reading up on the Big Burn of 1910 to better understand why it gets this bad."

https://thewalrus.ca/canada-wildfires/

🇺🇸❌🇮🇷 — U.S. Central Command:

U.S. Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit conduct a verification boarding aboard M/T Wen Yao in the Gulf of Oman, July 16.

As of today, American forces have redirected 3 commercial vessels trying to run the blockade, disabled 1 that didn’t comply, and boarded 1 to ensure full compliance with the ongoing U.S. naval blockade against Iran.

🇮🇷❌🇰🇼🇺🇸 — Scenes from Kuwait, near the Iraqi border, following Iranian drone strikes.

🇺🇸🚫🇮🇷 Updated list of targets: Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, Qeshm Island, Iranshahr, Hamidiyeh County, Sirik, Bostan, Kish Island, Chegeni County, Bushehr, and Bandar Lengeh.

⚪️ @Alsaa_plus_EN

🗽 🇺🇸 🚭 Pollution expert and former EPA employee Michael Petroni told The Post that breathing New York City’s smoke-filled air is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes.

NYC Mayor Mamdani cautioned New Yorkers to stay indoors or wear masks outside due to a "code red" air quality alert

📎 Insider Paper