San Lorenzo Valley Water District Rebuilds After ‘Most Expensive Disaster in History’
Emergency repairs are underway after a historic fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains wreaked havoc on the San Lorenzo Valley’s water infrastructure
Tag Archive for: California Wildfires
Opinion: Wildfires and Soaring Temperatures — the Hellscape Scientists Warned Us About is Here
After an extended weekend of wildfires, part of an early fire season that has already seen a record 2 million acres burned and Death Valley-like temperatures smothering the San Fernando Valley, Californians would be right to wonder whether we are living in a hellscape. We are not, it’s safe to say. But we are living in the future that climate scientists have been trying to warn us about for years now.
As California Burns, the Winds Arrive and the Lights Go Out
New wildfires ravaged bone-dry California during a scorching Labor Day weekend that saw a dramatic airlift of more than 200 people trapped by flames and ended with the state’s largest utility turning off power to 172,000 customers to try to prevent its power lines and other equipment from sparking more fires.
‘We’re Drying the Fuels’: How Climate Change is Making Wildfires Worse in the West
As flames tore through California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, Craig Clements drove toward the fire in a specialized radar-equipped Ford pickup, watching the plume of smoke billowing from the forest.
Clements is a professor who leads San Jose State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory, and he chases wildfires to study their behavior.
West Coast Wildfires, Gulf Coast Hurricanes: How Climate Change Connects These Extreme Events
In Northern California, crews labored Thursday to control megafires sparked by a rare barrage of lightning strikes.
Across the country, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall overnight in Louisiana, destroying buildings and toppling powerlines with unrelenting winds and rain.
California Fires: State Feds Agree to Thin Millions of Acres of Forests
The two dozen major fires burning across Northern California were sparked by more than 12,000 lightning strikes, a freak weather occurrence that turned what had been a relatively mild fire season into a devastating catastrophe
Officials Urge Water Conservation, Caution in Face of Raging Wildfires
With the North Bay’s LNU Complex Fire topping 124,000 acres Wednesday and new state evacuation orders emerging every few hours, local and state officials urged Bay Area residents to take a variety of precautions. The city of Healdsburg said Wednesday evening that all of its roughly 12,000 residents should be prepared to evacuate their homes “soon.”
Poor Planning Left California Short of Electricity in a Heat Wave
Everybody had known for days that a heat wave was about to wallop California. Yet a dashboard maintained by the organization that manages the state’s electric grid showed that scores of power plants were down or producing below peak strength, a stunning failure of planning, poor record keeping and sheer bad luck.
California Bills Tackle Water Contamination, PFAS, Wildfire
California could one day have a quick-strike panel focused on spotting emerging contaminants in drinking water to see if they pose a danger and need immediate attention.
The state also could certify labs to increase the amount of so-called forever chemicals that can be tested for in drinking water, aquifers, lakes, and streams.
The two initiatives are among more than 300 bills relating to energy and environment policy filed by California legislators in the 2020 session. They tackle issues like water contamination, wildfires, recycling, air quality, and other matters affecting the state’s nearly 40 million residents.
A February Without Rain Could Boost Wildfire Danger in Northern California
Meteorologists say much of Northern California likely will not see a drop of rain in February, heightening concerns that summer will arrive with below-average rainfall and tinder-dry hillsides susceptible to wildfire.
It’s too early to declare the rainy season a bust, as there could be huge storms in March and April. But a bone-dry February would make it nearly impossible to catch up to seasonal expectations, meteorologists warn.
