Today is the fifth since the fire has started in California. A number of 500,000 persons were evacuated and 1,300 homes have been destroyed. San Diego County has suffered losses in excess of $1 billion. Three of the largest fires still burned out of control there. However the firefighters have announced the wildfires are less dangerous now, because of the weaker wind and cooler temperatures.

President Bush declared California’s wildfires a “major disaster” and asked for federal help. Also, FBI gathered evidences to discover the sources of fire. “Those are crime scenes,” said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

I’ve noticed media cover very well the event. There are many blogs, news sites, photographers that keep updating the information for California wildfires. Even Google, which has its central headquarters in San Francisco, CA, has created a map of the California fires.

Emergency numbers here:

Find more here.

Today, October 15th, is Blog Action Day and BalkansMedia is ready to support it. If you are not a blogger or you don’t know what Blog Action Day is, it’s all about the environment and how bloggers can give ideas to protect it. It’s the bloggers that try to make everyone think about the environment for ONE day, so that we become aware of our future because unless we do something no one will save the glaciers, the ozone levels, or our lungs.

For some time, now I’ve been thinking about ways to make our lives greener and I’ve come up with three that would help.

GREENER ENERGY. There are already companies that designed hybrid street or home illumination using the solar energy, wind-mills or any other methods that will not do harm to the environment. We should also think of consuming less energy, by using CFD bulbs, turning the light on only when needed, and so on. This way the race for energy wouldn’t be so hasted.

TRANSPORTATION AND FUELS. In the world of big corporations no one will stop extracting oil, even if they know that it’s one of the biggest pollution sources in the world, because oil is turned into fuel, be it for cars, jets or ships. Cars and airplanes will make the air harder to breathe and ships will make the seas and oceans a dirtier place.

A solution for that would be hybrid engines that alternate electric power and fuel power. I remember when I visited the National Park of Plitvice, in Croatia, that the transportation was 100% on electric batteries and those buses were pretty big, like 60 people. I am also talking about public transportation as a substitute for your personal car, because one bus with 60 people would pollute less than 30 cars, and cities would be less crowded.

ENFORCE THE LAWS. This is highly needed because I’ve read about it too many times in the newspapers. Old plants without any environment measures taken that unloads the bad stuff into waters killing the fish or into the ground compromising any future agriculture. The laws should be very strict to make them fear their actions.

I know the Governments won’t do much about the environment problem right now, because the interests are just bigger than morals, but I had to say it. Balkans Media supports the Blog Action Day. We want to be a small piece in a puzzle that tries to save the world. You should do it, too. Tell all your people that October 15th is Blog Action Day and write your own opinion about it on your own blog or comment this article, below.