Fire crews worked overnight to contain a wildfire in steep terrain near Maple Ridge. Officials say there is currently no threat to the public or nearby homes.
ACERRA (Italy), May 23 — Pope Leo today called out companies who seek “dizzying” profits at the cost of environmental pollution, on a visit to an area in Italy known as a hotbed for illegal dumping of toxic waste.
On a visit to Acerra, about 220 km south of Rome, the first US pope urged the world to “reject temptations of power and enrichment linked to practices that pollute the land, water, air, and social coexistence.”
Leo said he wanted to come to the area near Naples known as the “Land of Fires”, where the European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that authorities had failed to protect residents from waste dumping since at least 1988, to “gather the tears” of families who had lost loves ones to related illnesses.
Arriving by popemobile in an outside square on a sunny spring day, Leo was greeted by people waving small yellow and white Vatican flags and wearing yellow hats, some holding up posterboards with pictures of family members who had died.
Leo, who in recent months has been speaking more forcefully and will issue his first major document on Monday, said “unscrupulous people and organisations have been allowed to act with impunity for too long”. During his four-hour visit to Acerra, he also referred to “the dizzying profits of a few, blind to the needs of people, their work and their future.” He also met with victims.
For years, collection, treatment and disposal of garbage in southern Italy was largely in the hands of a small group of private owners, with contracts sometimes tied to the Camorra, a mafia group based around Naples.
In January 2025 the European court found that Italian authorities had repeatedly failed to act to stop illegal dumping in a region also known as the “Triangle of Death”, due to abnormally high rates of cancer for local residents.
The court gave the Italian government two years to establish a comprehensive database of toxic waste sites and communicate the risks to the public.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in February 2025 appointed an Italian general to head a task force aimed at helping victims and pursuing environmental clean-up.
Leo will issue his first encyclical, a major text, to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, on Monday. It is expected to address the rise of AI and how the technology is being used in warfare and challenging workers’ rights. — Reuters
Someone reported two workers trapped in a confined space at the dock at about 3:30 p.m. Friday, and responding firefighters found a fire burning in the basement of a large metal structure at the dock, said Joanne Mariano with the New York Fire Department's press office.
The Fire Hills First Nations Police Service said charges are being laid against a 25-year-old man from the community following a wildfire earlier this month.
BANGKOK, May 21 — Thailand’s consumer watchdog will file a civil suit against the local unit of Volvo Cars over battery-related fires in its EX30 model, a senior official told Reuters after a meeting between customers and the carmaker failed to reach an agreement.
“The Office of Consumer Protection Board reached a resolution to file a suit for damages, including refunds,” Pradoemchai Bunchualuai, who chaired today’s meeting, told Reuters by phone.
Pradoemchai, who is an adviser to Thailand’s prime minister’s office, said the OCPB would run the civil suit on a case-by-case basis.
The decision to take court action follows two EX30 fires in the country this month, and adds to pressure on the Swedish carmaker as it tries to manage a global recall of its electric SUV.
Volvo Cars’ Thailand unit did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the suit. There are over 1,600 EX30s in Thailand.
A Volvo Cars spokesman had previously said that the incidents remain rare, with fires reported in 0.1 per cent of affected vehicles. Volvo Cars has issued notices to customers to not charge their battery beyond 70 per cent as an interim measure.
Pradoemchai said Volvo Cars had proposed battery replacements and the use of temporary vehicles for 90 per cent of those impacted and partial replacements for the rest, but that was not accepted by customers.
“Most consumers want a full refund and not battery replacements,” EX30-owner Tanchanok Nowsuwan, who attended the meeting, told reporters.
Reuters reported in February that Volvo would recall more than 40,000 EX30s and replace battery modules due to a defect that could cause packs to overheat and potentially catch fire. The Volvo Cars spokesman said the global recall has been reduced to 37,802 cars from 40,323. — Reuters
SYDNEY, May 20 — An Australian animal welfare group is seeking a heroic dog with an appetite for adventure for a full-time position as a koala rescuer.
The successful pooch will replace the world-famous Bear, credited with saving over 100 koalas from bushfires during a decade of service.
“Bear set the gold standard for koala detection dogs,” the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Oceania head of programmes Josey Sharrad said.
“He’s leaving very big boots to fill, but now it’s time to find his successor to follow in his pawprints and keep protecting koalas.”
The ideal candidate will be a rescue pup with a lot of energy and an “obsessive” personality — attributes that might make it hard to find a home but which make it perfect for saving koalas, IFAW said.
“By only recruiting a rescue dog, it’s a win-win — giving a dog the chance of a new life while helping our iconic koalas,” Innovation for Conservation director and handler Russell Miller said.
Other key attributes are a love of play, confidence and a gentle temperament towards fellow animals is crucial.
They must also be medium sized — “not too small that they struggle in the bush, not too big that the handlers can’t carry them when needed”, according to the IFAW job ad.
Interviews were being held in eastern Australia’s Sunshine Coast but applications by video are also welcome.
Bear’s skills saved over 100 koalas as the Black Summer bushfires raged across Australia’s eastern seaboard from late 2019 to early 2020, razing millions of hectares, destroying thousands of homes and blanketing cities in noxious smoke.
The tail-wagging detective with a “joyful and goofy” personality retired with an extensive list of accolades — including an Animal of the Year award and Puppy Tales Photos Australian Dog of the Year award. — AFP
Months after wildfires eliminate vegetation that holds hillside sediment together, debris flows—destructive landslides that carry bulky material down once-stable slopes—can devastate infrastructure, taking out roads and buildings in their wake.
Though the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) creates hazard predictions used to warn communities of the risk of these postfire debris flows, those predictions haven’t fully considered how recovering vegetation reduces risk over time—until now.
A new study published in Geosphere presents a new way to calculate postfire debris flow risk that takes vegetation recovery into account. The USGS will begin using the new method this wildfire season to create more accurate maps of debris flow hazard in the years after a fire.
“I’m so appreciative that the focus on how the debris flow hazard changes over time after fire is being addressed,” said Nancy Calhoun, a geologist and postwildfire debris flow program manager at the Washington Geological Survey who was not involved in the new study. Calhoun said she relies on the USGS hazard assessments for virtually everything her job requires.
“We’re glad to have a way that we can help our partners moderate those situations where the hazard has decreased,” said Andrew Graber, a geologist at the USGS Landslide Hazards Program and lead author of the new study.
Assessing Hazard, Again
After a wildfire, the USGS creates hazard maps that incorporate information about soil type, steepness, and burn severity (how much vegetation has been lost) to show where the risk of a debris flow may be elevated.
Then, the agency distributes this guidance to the National Weather Service, which uses it to set rainfall thresholds: levels of rainfall at which a debris flow becomes likely. State, county, and city agencies use those rainfall thresholds to issue warnings or take action when rainfall is imminent, for example, by closing highways or triggering evacuations.
“That left us with some uncertainty when we started to get further away in time from the fire.”
The methods used to create the USGS maps, however, historically relied on a snapshot of the burned area taken just after the fire, and the maps weren’t updated to reflect conditions as vegetation grew back and began holding soil in place again.
That led to situations where public safety decisions were made on the basis of outdated maps and rainfall thresholds. For example, concern over debris flows after the 2020 Grizzly Creek Fire in Colorado led to several closures of Interstate 70 in 2022, but the debris flows never happened.
“What [the original assessments] didn’t capture is how the vegetation came back,” Graber said. “That left us with some uncertainty when we started to get further away in time from the fire.”
Intense rainfall in July 2025 triggered a debris flow near Dayton, Wyo., in the 2024 Elk Fire burn area. Credit: USGS, Public Domain
To test an improved method for these hazard assessments, Graber and the research team incorporated satellite imagery of 12 burned areas that showed the degree of vegetation recovery right after the fire, 1 year after the fire, and 2 years after the fire. Then, they tested their new method by comparing its predictions to rainfall and debris flow data from the 12 burned areas.
The updated method better reflected what had actually happened after the fires, reducing the number of unnecessary warnings without missing real-world debris flows.
Risk Recalibration
The USGS plans to begin using their new workflow to create hazard maps for some higher-profile fires during the coming wildfire season.
“It’s a really important question: Are we still worried about this burn scar?”
That’s exciting for Calhoun. As part of her job, she’s in constant contact with emergency managers who periodically ask how worried they should be about debris flows in areas that burned years ago. “It’s a really important question: Are we still worried about this burn scar?” she said.
Right now, Calhoun has no data to point to in the years after a fire to give an updated answer to that question. Using the new method from Graber and the research team, she will.
“Because they’re using satellite [imagery] and repeatable quantitative methods to look at these burn scars over time, we’ll actually be able to say something useful and informed about vegetation recovery,” she said.
Having a deeper understanding of how debris flow risk evolves over time is especially important because debris flows themselves are becoming a greater risk to the public as a result of increasingly intense wildfires and rainstorms. In addition, more accurate assessments can reduce warning fatigue, which occurs when too many false alarms lead to people ignoring or opting out of alerts.
Graber hopes he and the USGS will continue to improve their methods for assessing debris flow hazards by collecting more debris flow data across the country and improving the underlying equation for hazard assessments so that it better reflects the unique conditions of different ecosystems in the United States. USGS researchers also published a new study in March presenting a method to generate maps of where debris flows might travel if they do occur.
“It’s a big year for USGS’s useful postfire products,” Calhoun said.
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Citation: van Deelen, G. (2026), A new approach can better predict debris flow hazards years after fires, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260160. Published on 19 May 2026.
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