Ahead of a Western wildfire season expected to be again worse than average, officials in Seattle announced Wednesday that five city buildings would be outfitted to serve as havens where residents can go to breathe clean air.
The move is in response to several years marked by thick smoke hanging over the city from summer wildfires, which officials and scientists have unequivocally connected to the slow-motion of the effects of climate change.
Seattle officials demonstrated the technology at one of the havens — a community center in the city's Rainier Beach neighborhood — pointing out air sensors mounted on the wall, and describing how the building's existing ventilation system had been retrofitted with special filters to keep it positively pressurized with clean air.
Along with the Rainier Beach facility, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said at least two of the facilities could potentially be scaled up to shelter the city's homeless population if air quality sinks far enough during the summer to endanger those unable to retreat indoors.
"We have to prepare as if this will be the new normal," Durkan said, adding that 2018 saw 24 days with hazardous air quality levels due to wildfire smoke, including several reaching extreme levels.
That reflects a broader shift being felt across the American and Canadian West, and likely to continue in coming years, according to experts and federal data.
In 2017 and 2018, 15,625 and 13,750 square miles (40,469 and 35,612 square kilometers) burned in total in the US, mostly in western states, according to federal figures, compared to a 10-year average of 10,937 square miles (28,327 square kilometers) per year, while the fire seasons in British Columbia broke worst-in-history records both years.
That translated to a thick pall of smoke hanging over the region, well beyond Seattle, with Missoula, Montana, San Francisco, Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, all logging their worst air quality days on record in either 2017 or 2018, according to a recent study.
Although not as bad as in the worst years, including 2015, which saw Washington's worst wildfire season in at least a century, the conditions are set this year again for a worse-than-average season.
"The West is going to have to get used to a lot more smoke," Medler said.
At the Seattle event, officials described how that's changing the character of the region, long known for its clean air and verdant landscapes.
"It's a sad thing to say this, but if you love the outdoors, you might want to get out there while it's safe," said Craig Kenworthy, director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
Lynn Sereda, an area woman who attended the event, described being struck by the climate of the northwest when she moved from New Jersey in the 1990s.
"The first thing I noticed was how clean the air and water was here. I never though the air could be compromised," Sereda said.
The first bad wildfire season she experienced, in 2017, was a departure from that.
"The minute I left my house you could smell the wildfire in the air," Sereda said. "Honestly it was pretty frightening."
Another attendee, Donna Funk, described a similar experience.
"I went out one day and there was ash falling from the sky," Funk said. "I had never seen anything like that before."
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
