Officials say a volunteer firefighter has died battling a wildfire in Florida, while two large fires in Georgia have destroyed more than 120 homes. The sheriff's office in Nassau County, Florida, said Friday that volunteer firefighter James "Kevin" Crews died Thursday after suffering an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire. Meanwhile, crews are battling two large fires in southeast Georgia that Gov. Brian Kemp says have destroyed 120 homes and threaten nearly 1,000 more. Kemp said no other wildfire in Georgia's history have burned so many homes. He said investigators believe the fire in rural Brantley County was sparked by an aluminum party balloon touching power lines.
Wildfires are intensifying across the southeastern U.S. They've destroyed about 50 homes in Georgia. The fires also have forced evacuations. Some of the biggest blazes are along Georgia's coast and around Jacksonville, Florida. Drought and strong winds are fueling the fires. Georgia's two largest wildfires have burned over 31 square miles. In Brantley County, more evacuations were ordered Wednesday on top of 800 evacuations that had taken place. So far, there have been no major injuries reported. In Florida, firefighters are battling 131 wildfires that have burned 34 square miles. The National Weather Service warns that low humidity and winds will keep the fire danger elevated.
By JOHN SEEWER, KATHY McCORMACK and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press
A super typhoon steadily battered a pair of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean with ferocious winds and relentless rains, shredding tin roofs and forcing residents to take cover from flying tree limbs. Super Typhoon Sinlaku pounded the Northern Mariana Islands for hours before daybreak Wednesday, slowing just to inflict more damage across the islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to nearly 50,000 people. The National Weather Service says the tropical typhoon was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph when it made landfall on the islands. The weather service says tropical force winds and torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding on Guam, a U.S. territory to the south with several U.S. military installations and about 170,000 residents.
Mothers in a displacement camp in southern Somalia struggle to keep their children alive as drought and aid disruptions deepen hunger, a crisis that now also has a link to the far-away Iran war. On Wednesday, UNICEF chief Catherine Russell visited the Ladan camp in the town of Dollow, to see the situation first-hand. Russell and aid workers say the war has sent shockwaves, caused shipping delays and threatened supply lines because of soaring fuel prices. The U.N. children's agency says it has lifesaving supplies in transit, but shipments now look uncertain and stocks could run out by late April. Hospital staff say they now treat children in extreme condition.
