This Week’s Unholy Mix of Drought, Wind, and Fire in Southern California: A Warning of an Accelerating Insurance Crisis in Climate-Risk Areas?
In the not-too-distant future, certain areas will effectively be red-lined from a flood or fire insurance perspective, either formally or by having policies be so expensive as to be unaffordable, or having terms that limit coverage in the event of wildfire or flood losses? What happens to those properties when the only market is cash-only buyers (or much smaller mortgages, limited to the maximum that insurers will cover), and then ones who understand that they are at risk of bearing the full or large losses?
And consider: what happens to current home borrowers if they can’t meet the obligations in their mortgage to maintain adequate home insurance?
Hollywood Hills fire breaks out as deadly wildfires burn out of control across Los Angeles area
The Sunset Fire was burning near the Hollywood Bowl and about a mile (kilometer) from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The streets around Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds were packed with stop-and-go traffic as sirens blared and low-flying helicopters soared by on their way to dump water on the flames. People toting suitcases left hotels on foot, while some onlookers walked towards the flames, recording the fire on their phones.
5 dead, more than 1,100 structures destroyed as firestorm besieges L.A. County
More than 1,100 buildings have burned and at least five people are dead in wildfires burning across L.A. County, making this one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory.
Giving Guide! Eugene Weekly’s annual effort to help you decide what nonprofits to support—FUSEE
“FUSEE is engaged in paradigm-shifting educational and policy work around fire. Shifting fire policy is essential to responding to the climate crisis, protecting communities and ecosystems, and supporting Tribal sovereignty and traditional ecological management. FUSEE’s work is incredibly important for our region at this moment.” – Sarah D. Wald, associate professor of environmental studies and English, University of Oregon
Malibu residents flee as wildfire swallows homes along iconic Southern California coastline
The beaches are empty in Malibu as a wildfire tears through swaths of the iconic Southern California coastline, consuming homes and vehicles and forcing residents – including legendary actor Dick Van Dyke – to flee their coveted hillside properties.
Experiencing natural disasters increases partisan disagreement on climate change
Mike here: ndividuals often cling to pre-existing beliefs on politicized topics like climate change, even in the face of contradicting evidence. This phenomenon, well-documented in social psychology, shows that people frequently double down on their beliefs rather than reconsider them. For example, a study involving supporters of the false WMD claims in Iraq revealed that even after being shown evidence to the contrary, including President Bush's admission, their conviction in the validity of those claims increased. Interestingly, some who have experienced climate-related disasters may also deepen their denial, influenced by partisan media that supports their views.
The uncertain fate of America’s iconic Christmas tree
Rich Fairbanks is among the rare-but-vocal landowners who support fire management, even as he questions some of the federal government’s efforts. He collaborated with a regional Prescribed Burn Association — the first of its kind in the state — to burn an acre of land right by his home.
He wishes more landowners would realize that to protect the forest, it needs to burn occasionally.
There’s a Simple Way to Stop Dangerous Wildfires. We Barely Use It.
Latest writing by Friend of FUSEE, M.R. O’Connor. She lives in Brooklyn and is author of the recent book, “Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World.” This article continues her journey of discovery within the fire practitioner movement.
It’s time to redefine what a megafire is in the climate change era
“The modern era of megafires is often defined based on wildfire size,” wrote Jennifer Balch, associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her colleagues in the new study, “but it should be defined based on how fast fires grow and their consequent societal impacts.” While large fires have a major effect on air quality, ecosystems, and the release of planet-warming carbon, it is fast fires that have the greatest impact on infrastructure damage, evacuation efforts and, ultimately, death tolls.
Wildfires in the West Aren’t Just Getting Bigger. They’re Faster, Too.
When it comes to wildfire threats, “we’ve been so focused on size,” said Jennifer Balch, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. “But what we really need to focus on is speed.”
Many of today’s deadliest fires burn so ferociously that firefighters cannot do much in the moment but get out of the way, Dr. Coop said. “If we’re not prepared for them, they hit us and they hit us hard.”
Forest Service halts prescribed burns in California. Is it worth the risk?
“They’re backed into a corner, but they’ve backed themselves into a corner,” Quinn-Davidson said. “They’re not leading, and it seems like they’re not capable of leading on prescribed fire, given the nature of politics and how they do business — always choosing short-term risk over long-term vision and strategy.”
She calls for a rethinking of how prescribed burns can be applied on federal lands.
“If the Forest Service is consistently not able to do the work, how can we lean on local resources — tribes and prescribed burn associations, for example — to get that work done?”
This data shows just how much faster California wildfires are getting — and why that's so dangerous
Fires are moving quicker in California versus other regions in the West, the scientists found. Between 2001 and 2020, wildfire growth rates increased by 249% across the Western U.S. — defined as a group of 11 Western states — but 398% in California alone. Mountainous regions of Southern California were found to have the largest increase in daily wildfire growth rates in the two decade span.
“This is the California foothills,” Kolden said. “The Coast Range, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, all through the Central Valley. This is the region where you really have fires being carried by that grass understory.”
Working with fire: Eugene-based organization FUSEE celebrates 20 years of rethinking what we think we know about wildfires
Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology is celebrating 20 years of advocating for change in wildfire media coverage and management. For FUSEE members, proactive fire lighting can solve the wildfire crisis. This stance has been historically underrepresented in media and policy because of the conventional narrative that fire suppression and logging will prevent wildfire damage.
“We’re torch bearers for a new paradigm of fire management” says founder and executive director Timothy Ingalsbee, echoing FUSEE’s slogan. Over its 20 years FUSEE has been featured in over 400 news stories and has had a national impact on wildfire policy.
Sharp divide in Oregon over bill to step up logging to prevent wildfires
Republicans are backing a proposal to scale back environmental regulations to “thin” forests while Democrats and environmentalists want to fund community preparedness
Ten days of action: The Eugene Environmental Film Festival starts Oct. 11 at Art House
“Environmental justice is at the heart of this year’s festival,” says EEFF Director Ana McAbee in a press release. “We believe that films have the power to educate, inspire and mobilize communities.” Each day of the festival is hosted by either filmmakers or by local nonprofits working in collaboration with the festival. Those nonprofits include Mount Pisgah Arboretum, Beyond Toxics, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, the Edelic Center for Ethnobotanical Services, Friends of Family Farmers, BRING Recycling and the Willamette Resources and Educational Network.
How the Northwest Forest Plan may reshape management of our woods
“One of the biggest barriers is just risk-averse managers. There’s this double standard,” continued Ingalsbee. “They can light up an entire mountainside in a huge backfire, fighting the fire and celebrated as heroes. But if they try to light a prescribed fire and things go wrong, it could cost their career.”
Wildfire Data Is Flawed — Here’s How to Fix It.
The U.S. Forest Service includes fire it intentionally sets as part of its acreage count of the nation’s “wildfires.” That presents an inaccurate picture.
Can Washington hack and burn its way out of a future of megafires?
By the 1950s, wildfires that used to burn around 30 million acres each year now burned close to 3 million a year, said Timothy Ingalsbee, a wildfire ecologist and the executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. During these decades, forests across the American West were accumulating a fire deficit. Grasses, shrubs and trees that historically burned away collected and piled up.