This has been one of the craziest years in any of our lifetimes. World War III is literally playing out right in front of our eyes, this has been the worst year for wildfires that the western half of the country has experienced, severe hunger is on the rise all over the globe, the Ebola outbreak in Africa is now the second largest of all time, and we just continue to get hammered by one natural disaster after another. This is what a “perfect storm” looks like, and it just keeps intensifying.
In 2020, 10.27 million acres burned in the United States, and that established a brand new record.
In 2026, we are on pace to absolutely smash that old record.
Through August 18th, more than 7.2 million acres have already burned in the United States.
We are way ahead of the pace set in 2020.
In fact, we are way ahead of the pace of any of the last 10 years.
Of course it isn’t just America that is burning. 2026 has been a year when gigantic wildfires have been raging all over the planet…
The summer of 2026 has been one of extraordinary fires. In Europe, they have burned hundreds of thousands of acres in France and Spain and destroyed homes across England; they killed 13 people in Spain last month, and an elderly couple in Greece this weekend. In Canada, fires have consumed an expanse of forestland larger than Belgium—which is also battling its biggest recorded wildfire. In the United States, about 7.2 million acres have burned, the largest year-to-date area in the past decade and nearly double what it was at this time last year, according to data from the National Interagency Coordination Center. Allison Rayburn, a program coordinator for the Oregon Department of Forestry, told me that in the eastern part of the state, “you can barely see the sun” through the smoke: “It’s just devastation, and miles and miles and miles of blackened landscapes.”
In Europe, many of the fires have threatened populated areas, but in the U.S., much of the area burning in the West has been rural. Near the Oregon town of Jordan Valley, the Big Grass Fire has been burning since July 23 and is among the largest fires in the state’s modern history; toward the end of last month, it hopped a canyon and crossed the border to Idaho, where the smoke from this and other fires made the air quality the worst in the country. The complex of fires in Spokane, Washington, flattened entire neighborhoods; three other wildfires 10 times its size are burning elsewhere in the state.
I know that some of you live in areas where wildfire smoke blanketed the sky for weeks.
In Oregon, the total number of acres that have burned is now up to 2.63 million acres.
They have already shattered the yearly record for that state, and more wildfires just continue to spread.
Of course this hasn’t just been a record year for wildfires.
We have been experiencing monster storms, epic floods and horrifying tornado outbreaks too.
During the first half of 2026, there were 12 “billion dollar disasters” in the United States alone…
Extreme weather has dominated headlines throughout the first half of 2026.
Since January, the U.S. has recorded 12 billion-dollar disasters, ranging from severe storms and tornadoes to flooding and wildfires.
“Billion dollar disasters” used to be rare.
But now they just keep coming at us one after another.
In the Southwest, a multi-year drought is a seemingly endless disaster that just keeps on giving.
At this point, the water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell have both dropped to dangerously low levels…
Their water levels are now just above the threshold at which electricity production would be affected.
On Sunday, the level of Lake Powell, which lies mostly in Utah, fell to 3,519.80 feet (1,072.8 meters) above sea level, just below its previous low set in 2023, according to data from the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency responsible for monitoring the Colorado River.
On Friday, Lake Mead, created by the Hoover Dam on the boundary between Nevada and Arizona, fell to 1,039.70 feet above sea level, (316.9 meters), data showed.
We desperately need weather patterns to get back to normal.
Unfortunately, it is not likely that is going to happen any time soon because it is being projected that the El Niño of 2026 will be the strongest ever recorded…
Meanwhile, it appears that World War III has entered a very dangerous phase.
President Trump has announced that there are “no talks or conversations going on” with Iran…
The Trump administration, Israel and Iran are all pondering their next moves.
The Iranians are threatening to go on the offensive if the Trump administration does not agree to their demands within a certain period of time.
If that actually happens, the fighting in the Middle East will go to a level that we have never seen before.
According to NBC News, western officials believe that Russia is sending “drone components, ammunition and TNT” to the Iranians…
Russia is shipping drone components, ammunition and TNT to Iran through the Caspian Sea, helping Tehran replenish stockpiles damaged in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, according to a European government document obtained by NBC News and verified by a Western official.
If this report is accurate, that makes Russia a direct participant in the war in the Middle East.
Of course the U.S. has been giving a tremendous amount of aid to Ukraine for a very long time, and that makes us a direct participant in that war.
Last night, the Ukrainians sent more than 600 attack drones toward the Moscow area…
Ukraine has launched another massive overnight drone wave on Russia. While this is nothing new or unusual, the number of drones concentrated specifically on the Moscow region was much larger than prior attacks.
Over 600 drones were sent on Moscow and the surrounding region overnight into Tuesday morning, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. It ranks among the single largest assaults on the capital of the war. Regional reports say it’s the largest drone attack on Moscow of the last two years.
The Ukrainians are trying to provoke the Russians into doing something that will cause NATO forces to enter the conflict.
We are closer to nuclear war than ever before, but most of those living in the western world do not seem to realize this.
In Africa, the focus is on another historic crisis.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now the second largest Ebola outbreak in the history of the world…
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) confirmed via its public health agency on Sunday that at least 2,325 people have died of Ebola infections in the current outbreak in the east of the country, making it the deadliest such outbreak in the country’s history.
Experts noted that the extremely high death toll is likely not a full count of the people killed by the disease, as the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) was slow to identify an outbreak in the affected area, and that only one other known Ebola outbreak – the 2014-2016 outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia – has resulted in more deaths. The death rate of identified patients has increased in the past few months and resources to aid those diagnosed remain insufficient, health experts lament.
Unlike other strains, there is no cure for this particular version of Ebola.
So that makes this outbreak different from past major outbreaks.
Famine is also erupting in many parts of Africa.
In one area of Somalia, approximately 50 percent of the children under the age of 5 are now suffering from acute malnutrition…
The MSF survey, conducted across 888 households in 14 displacement sites in Baidoa, found that one-third of families are surviving on just one meal a day, while only 2 percent can afford three meals a day.
The results are consistent with MSF’s regular malnutrition surveillance in Baidoa, where teams have screened more than 21,000 children under 5 since the beginning of the year and found global acute malnutrition levels of around 50 percent.
Hunger is growing here in the United States too.
Approximately one out of every seven Americans has experienced food insecurity at some point within the last year, and demand at food banks has been on the rise…
In late July, just two days before the first of the month, a line of Oregonians stood waiting for free food.
At the Dallas food bank in the Willamette Valley countryside, the hunger crisis gripping Oregon was on full display. Alexis Arechiga, 28, struggles to afford snacks for church and sporting events with her two kids. Corrina Campbell, 32, visits the food bank twice a week, and says feeding her two kids means that on some nights she goes to sleep hungry.
The high cost of groceries and the federal government’s cuts to SNAP benefits have left more Oregonians struggling to afford food. Food assistance programs like food banks are stretched thin trying to meet the growing demand for help.
Every single day, more Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty.
As poverty grows, I think that we are going to see even more people start to totally lose it.
Earlier today, I came across a Fox News story about a crazed man in Philadelphia that was chasing a 40-year-old woman with a doll mask on…
A masked man is on the loose in Philadelphia after allegedly chasing down and assaulting a woman while wearing a doll mask, police said.
The unidentified man was seen on Wednesday near City Hall and asked one woman if she was “ready to die” while chasing others, police told FOX 29. Police said the man, who was wearing a doll mask, chased a 40-year-old woman and made threatening comments while holding his hand behind his back.
The fabric of society is breaking down all around us.
The elite can clearly see what is happening, and that is why security has become such a huge priority for many of them.
In Switzerland, an ultra-high security vault for the elite is being constructed more than 330 feet beneath a mountain…
No longer do mountain lairs exclusively belong to the cat-stroking and eyepatch-wearing villains of spy novels.
Now, you too can buy an ultra-high security vault that lies more than 330ft beneath a Swiss mountain range – as long as you have nearly half a million pounds spare.
Swiss security firm Brünig Mega Safe is working to dig out up to 25 caverns from the limestone that makes up the Brünig massif.
In other areas of the world, the elite are constructing vast underground compounds in anticipation of what is coming.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of us do not have that option.
We are just going to have to face whatever is ahead with our very limited resources.
Global events have certainly accelerated in 2026, but I am convinced that the most dramatic moments of this year are still in our future.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
