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The American house is growing. These days, the average new home encompasses 2,500 square feet, about 50 percent more area than the average house in the late 1970s, according to Census data. Compared to the typical house of 40 years ago, today’s likely has another bathroom and an extra bedroom, making it about the same size as the Brady Bunch house, which famously fit two families.

This expansion has come at a cost: the American lawn.

The first diagram shows what the average house looked like in 1978, when it measured 1,650 square feet and sat on 0.22 acres. The second shows its counterpart from 2015.

A recent survey of the Sierra conducted by the U.S. Forest Service paints a disturbing picture of the fuel conditions across Central and Southern California.

Continuous drought the past five years has weakened trees, allowing them to be susceptible to the bark beetle. The recent number of dead trees in the Central Sierra is 66 million, providing a heavy concentration of dead and highly combustible fire material, especially in the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests.

 

Kids will have another way to keep their cool starting Friday when Modesto turns back on some of its splash fountains, which it turned off two summers ago because of the drought.

The City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to grant an exemption for the splash fountains from the city’s drought rules. The fountains could reopen as soon as Friday afternoon.

Councilwoman Kristi Ah You cast the “no” vote. In an interview, Ah You said she is concerned about the drought and that there are other options for kids, such as public swimming pools.

Most central San Joaquin Valley water suppliers met their water conservation mandates in May.

In the third month of lower water-use mandates, 14 of 21 suppliers in the Valley achieved water-saving goals set by the state. Statewide, Californians also were successful in conserving water. Residential water use decreased by 28 percent in May, compared with the same month in 2013. And cumulatively, the statewide reduction for the 12 months from June 2015 to May 2016 was 24.5 percent, the State Water Resources Control Board said Wednesday. Overall, residents saved 1.6 million acre-feet of water since mandatory conservation standards began – enough water to supply 8 million people for a year.