Catastrophic fires are a reckoning for Californians and their ‘new normal.’ Has the state reached a tipping point?
After this year’s devastating Camp and Woolsey fires, which came on the heels of the landslides in Montecito and Santa Barbara, just months after the Thomas, Tubbs and Atlas fires, it seems a ripe time to ask whether the precarious balance we’ve held onto for so long has finally been lost.
California is managing its forests — but is the president managing its federal lands?
NBC News examines the state of forest management in California, taking a deeper look at the complex web of policies and ownership that has contributed to the cataclysmic forest fires of late.
Why There Are Challenges To Doing More Prescribed Burns As Part Of Forest Management
California's devastating fires are prompting calls for more aggressive forest management. One way to do that is through prescribed burns, meaning fires set on purpose. But there are challenges to doing more of them, as Capital Public Radio's Ezra David Romero reports.
California fires: Why there will be more disasters like Paradise
Scientists say as temperatures continue to warm, drying out brush, grasses and trees into explosively flammable fuel by late summer and autumn, catastrophic fires and the unhealthy smoke they spew hundreds of miles away will almost certainly become more frequent in California and across the West in the coming years.
To Help Prevent the Next Big Wildfire, Let the Forest Burn
Much of California’s forestland is overgrown, partly because of federal regulations implemented in 1910, which mandated stamping out wildfires as soon as possible. These policies were revised around the 1970s to allow some fires to naturally burn their course, but much of the West has struggled to do so.
Wildfire, Landscapes And Debris Fields: Mapping Risks After Major Wildfire
Berkeley Forests Co-Director William Stewart speaks to Capital Public Radio about what concerns geologists as winter storms move through the areas hit by wildfire this year.
Pacific Storm To Bring Rain, Mountain Snow To California
California will see widespread rain and heavy Sierra Nevada snowfall through midweek, potentially bringing travel problems and raising the risk of damaging runoff from wildfire burn scars, forecasters said Tuesday.