The American West is ablaze with fires fueled by climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. In California, wildfire has blackened more than three million acres; in Oregon, a once-in-a-generation crisis has forced half a million people to flee their homes. All the while, one of our most valuable firefighting allies has remained overlooked: The beaver.
When wildfire strikes water, infrastructure that’s made out of plastic is particularly at risk of contamination. If pipes and tanks lose pressure, or get hot, chemicals can leach into the water supply. The CZU Lightning Complex Fire badly damaged seven and a half miles of water supply lines made of polyethylene, a plastic, in northern Santa Cruz County.
The CZU Lightning Complex Fire that stretches from San Mateo County to Santa Cruz County devastated neighborhoods, roads and crucial water supply pipes.
Hundreds of families have been told not to drink the water, even if they boil it.
There’s a lot of cleaning up to do, especially at the water district facilities, and some of that cleanup includes removing damaged trees that stand 100-200 feet high.
Message to Democrats: Just because President Trump says it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.
Yes, our president habitually fantasizes, distorts and lies. But to borrow an old cliché, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
One important example: Trump’s widely ridiculed comment that California needs to “rake the floor” of its forests better.
Like most Californians, I have not seen blue skies for weeks. The dirty air I’m breathing hurts my lungs and stings my eyes. My kids are confined to the indoors to protect their growing lungs, though I’m concerned that even our air indoors contains dangerous pollutants.
While fire crews work to stop more loss of life and officials work to update plans for the next fire season, California must face the toughest challenge of all: How do we slow and ultimately stop the changes in our climate that are making wildfires in California even more dangerous and deadly?
The West Coast had just experienced a record-shattering heat wave when news came last week of a rare late-summer snowstorm in Colorado. To those still sweltering in California, Oregon and Washington, it sounded like a dream come true. In fact, it was an omen of a greater disaster to come.
Historic wildfires raging from California to Colorado are weakening watersheds and setting the stage for deadly mudslides and flooding and, in some places, threatening to poison critical water supplies.
Like millions of people in the western United States this week, I woke up to deep red, sunless skies, layers of ash coating the streets, gardens, and cars, and the smell of burning forests, lives, homes, and dreams. Not to be too hyperbolic, but on top of the political chaos, the economic collapse, and the worst pandemic in modern times, it seemed more than a little apocalyptic.
Too much of the western United States is on fire, and many areas not suffering directly from fire are enveloped in choking, acrid smoke.
Two weeks ago, the Pine Gulch Fire became the largest wildfire in Colorado history when it grew to an area nearly the size of Chicago. The 139,000-acre blaze, ignited July 31, was fueled by another record: The area where the fire occurred experienced its hottest August in at least 126 years.
Emergency repairs are underway after a historic fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains wreaked havoc on the San Lorenzo Valley’s water infrastructure
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
