Alarmingly, about half the people exposed to wildfires in Washington and Oregon were those least able to afford to protect their homes, evacuate safely and recover.
Power lines spark a large number of U.S. wildfires.
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
Adapting to our fiery future means preparing for the risks and not putting out every low-risk wildfire, writes the author of a new book on learning to live with fire.
Hurricane Hilary was a powerful Category 4 storm as it headed for Baja California on Aug. 18, 2023.
NOAA NESDIS
Forecasters warned of ‘potentially historic rainfall’ and ‘dangerous to locally catastrophic flooding.’ A hurricane scientist explains what El Niño, a heat dome and mountains have to do with the risk.
The fossil deposits at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have well-preserved remains of many prehistoric animals that got stuck in natural asphalt seeps over the past 60,000 years.
Cullen Townsend, courtesy of NHMLAC
Emily Lindsey, University of California, Los Angeles; Lisa N. Martinez, University of California, Los Angeles, and Regan E. Dunn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
New findings from the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California suggest human-caused wildfires in the region, along with a warming climate, led to the loss of most of the area’s large mammals.
Nearly a dozen states have enacted these policies so far.
Westend61 via Getty Images
Nearly 22 million people lived within 3 miles of a US wildfire in the past two decades. A new study tracking their locations flips the script on who is at risk.
An irrigation canal moves Colorado River water through farm fields in California’s Imperial Valley.
Photo by Sandy Huffaker / AFP via Getty Images
Southwest states have bought time with an agreement between California, Arizona and Nevada to cut Colorado River water use by about 14%. Now comes the hard part.
Sows in gestation crates at a breeding facility in Waverly, Va.
Humane Society of the U.S./Wikimedia Commons
The Supreme Court has upheld a controversial California law requiring pork sold in-state to be humanely raised, no matter where it’s produced. Pork producers say it could drive up food prices.
Common household products such as cleaning agents can contain a wide range of harmful chemicals.
gawriloff/istock via Getty Images
Manufacturers don’t usually have to disclose what’s in products like shampoo and household cleaners, but a new study finds that these products can contain hazardous ingredients.
Fires are increasing in high mountain areas that rarely burned in the past.
John McColgan, Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Fire Service
This year’s Sierra snowpack is looking a lot like 1983’s, and that was a year of flooding and mudslide disasters. A meteorologist explains what’s ahead.
California’s snowpack was more than twice the average in much of the state in early March 2023.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Reservoirs and streams are in good shape in California and the Great Basin, but groundwater and ecosystems are another story. And then there’s the Colorado River Basin.
A series of atmospheric rivers in early 2023 covered the Sierra Nevada in snow.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Most Americans know Dianne Feinstein as a US senator. But for voters in San Francisco, she will forever be remembered as the woman who stepped in at a tragic and traumatic moment to lead the city.
Wildfire Specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension; Adjunct Professor Bren School of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Founding Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis
Adjunct Assistant Professor and a founder of the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles