Cal Fire faces a mental health crisis. As wildfires burn year-round, thousands of overworked California firefighters carry a heavy load of trauma, pain and grief. They leave a fire but the fire never leaves them.
Julie Cart / CalMatters
Posted inEnvironment
Report to California Legislature: Prepare for sweeping effects of climate change
From housing and health to transportation and education, the Legislative Analyst’s Office report provides a litany of sobering climate change impacts for California legislators to address as they enact policies and set budgets.
Posted inEnvironment
Winged warning: Migrating birds hit hard by California’s drought
As the drought dries up California’s wetlands, traveling birds such as ducks, geese and eagles are struggling to survive and breed. “This drought is bad. The odds are against us,” a state expert said.
Posted inEnvironment
As UN tackles twin climate threats, California struggles with them, too
UN nations have pledged to reduce climate-changing methane and forest destruction within 10 years. California has been trying to handle both problems, with limited success.
Posted inLatest News
Lightning could spark more California fires as world warms
Fire officials are bracing for the worst as scientists predict that climate change could cause more lightning strikes, which often ignite deadly, unpredictable and remote wildfires in Northern California.
Posted inLatest News
Events that ‘will likely inform the next century’: California’s 2020 wildfire siege by the numbers
In a year of superlatives, some statistics stand out for California’s 2020 fire year: Four million acres, 112 million tons of greenhouse gases, thousands of lightning strikes, 11 million gallons of fire retardant. And 31 lost lives.
Posted inEnvironment
Thieves are stealing California’s scarce water. Where’s it going? Illegal marijuana farms
As drought grips most of California, water thefts have increased to record levels. Thieves tap into hydrants, pump water from rivers and break into remote water stations and tanks.
Posted inEnvironment
Running out of water and time: How unprepared is California for 2021’s drought?
With most of the state gripped by extreme dryness, some conditions are better, some worse, than the last record-breaking drought. Over-pumping of wells hasn’t stopped. But urban residents haven’t lapsed back into water-wasting lifestyles.
Posted inEnvironment
Battered, burned but alive: Time will heal Big Basin’s wounds, but it needs big money, too
California’s early estimate of $200 million for basic wildfire repair across the state Parks and Recreation Department will be gobbled up to satisfy Big Basin’s needs alone, estimated at $186 million. And it’s only the beginning.
Posted inEnvironment
Unwelcome and tough to evict: California’s costly, uphill battle against invasive species
Like house guests overstaying their welcome, foreign crabs have been nearly impossible to boot out of California. A new strategy, born of failure, may help combat armies of invasive plants and animals that are preying on vulnerable native creatures.