Roger Bales, University of California, Merced and Martha Conklin, University of California, Merced As California contends with its worst wildfire season in history, it’s more evident than ever that land management practices in the state’s forested mountains need major changes. Many of California’s 33 million acres of forests face widespread threats stemming from past…
by Elizabeth Wei, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. What a week. Rough for all Californians. Exhausting for the firefighters on the front lines. Heart-shattering for those who lost homes…
Dozens of interviews and a review of records show that virtually every aspect of the blaze had been forecast and worried over for years. Every level of government understood the dangers and took few, if any, of the steps needed to prevent catastrophe. by Keith Schneider for ProPublica On the afternoon of July 23, a tire on…
“The decision to issue alerts and evacuation orders rests with local authorities, and as the Camp Fire began on Nov. 8, the Butte County Sheriff’s Department decided to use what experts say is an outdated system — called Code Red — to notify residents of danger with a phone call. “But only residents who…
Editor’s Note: Nevada County resident, Brian Gibb, posted the following statement to the Facebook discussion group “Happening Now.” He kindly gave me permission to reprint it here. EVACUATION PLANNING: WHERE TO GO? I posted on this page a few days ago about the urgent need for a mass community evacuation plan so that we…