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[ad_1] RICHMOND: The US federal government is to announce on Thursday the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ) will make nearly $2 billion of new money available through two programs intended to boost resilience to the effects of climate-related disasters. The funding comes as climate change drives more intense storms, flooding and wildfires across the United States, where this year there have already been at least 24 such events resulting in losses of more than $1 billion each, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The two programs FEMA is funding are Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), which funds projects providing protection from the effects of climate change, and the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program, which targets projects that cut flood risk. Victoria Salinas, head of resilience at FEMA, said while the agency was most commonly associated with emergency response and recovery, it also focused on mitigation t...

[ad_1] SINGAPORE: Air quality in parts of Singapore hit unhealthy levels on Saturday as winds brought haze from Indonesian forest fires to the city-state, its environment agency said. A prolonged dry season has led to a higher risk of wildfires on Indonesia 's major islands, stoking fears of a repeat of the smoke-belching blazes that have affected air quality in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore in recent years. Singapore's National Environment Agency said the pollutant standards index (PSI) breached the unhealthy level of 100 on Saturday, hitting 111 in an eastern suburb and 102 in the island's centre before midday. At PSI levels between 100 and 200, residents are advised to "reduce prolonged strenuous outdoor physical exertion", according to NEA guidelines. However, people were still seen jogging and cycling in one park in the city's east. The agency said late Friday that the number of fire "hotspots" on the nearby Indonesian island of ...

[ad_1] While many more people across the country are seeing the impact of wildfires and smoke , scientists are turning to the promise of big data, technology and collaboration to keep big fires from spreading.    "If you manage to stop this in the first couple of hours it's a lot easier to stop," said Dr. Ilkay Altintas, the founder and director of the WIFIRE Lab at University of California San Diego.  Pinpointing a fire quickly improves the chances of containing a blaze. Altintas and her team have developed a platform called Firemap designed to reduce the response time for attacking a wildfire.   The platform analyzes data in new ways, starting with the collection of 911 call data where callers often provide a very general idea about the location of a fire.   To enhance that accuracy, the platform relies on a system of mountaintop cameras called ALERTWildfire, built by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the Univer...