President Obama declares major disaster in deadly California wildfire – ‘Four years of extreme drought conditions have parched our landscapes and created millions of dead trees’

By Veronica Rocha, Paige St. John, Frank Shyong, and Hailey Branson-Potts22 September 2015 SACRAMENTO, California (Los Angeles Times) – As firefighters continued to advance on the deadly wildfires in Northern California, President Barack Obama declared a major disaster for the Valley fire. The move frees up federal assistance for home repairs, replacements and other aid. […]

What megablazes tell us about the fiery future of global warming – ‘We’ve got to attack this at its source: carbon pollution’

By Tim Dickinson 15 September 2015 (Rolling Stone) – In May this year, the nearly unthinkable happened in the Pacific Northwest: The rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, one of the wettest places on the continent, caught fire. By August, an inferno was stirring in the forests east of the Cascades. A wind-whipped blaze near the […]

Wildfire statistics for the U.S. West, 16 September 2015

20 September 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Here’s an update to last month’s post on wildfire data from the Western United States. Data from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (Fuels and Fire Danger [pdf]) show that the area burned by wildfires in the Northwest is well above average, and a spike in the number of wildfires […]

Global drought: why is no one discussing fresh water at Cop21?

By Katherine Purvis16 September 2015 (The Guardian) – Around the world, fresh water supplies are drying up: California in the US and São Paulo in Brazil are enduring historic droughts, groundwater sources have been plundered in south Asia, and globally more than 750 million people lack access to safe drinking water. The global fresh water […]

Risk analyst Aon Benfield: Drought conditions worsen around the globe – Economic losses expected to top $8 billion

4 September 2015 (Insurance Journal) – The monthly report for August from Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting catastrophe model development team cites the “severe drought conditions” in the western U.S. as resulting in “economic losses expected to reach at least $3.0 billion – mostly attributable to agricultural damage in California.” Several Caribbean and Central American nations […]

California wildfire evacuees return home, find charred ruins

By Brian Skoloff and Kristin J. Bender 15 September 2015 MIDDLETOWN, California (Associated Press) – Some residents cried as they walked through the rubble of their homes while others shared amazing stories of survival as more people returned to their houses Tuesday and surveyed the twisted metal and smoking ruins left behind by a devastating […]

The forgotten students of California’s drought – ‘Drought is like a cancer: It kills you slowly.’

By Mareesa Nicosia13 September 2015 Five Points, California (The Atlantic) – It’s 7:50 on a hot, dry August morning when the buses rumble past a barren field— normally filled with broccoli this time of year — and creak to a stop in front of a flat-topped school, dust blooming up from under their wheels. Children […]

Photo gallery: At least 100 homes destroyed by California blaze – ‘There is nothing but burned houses, burned cars’

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Olga R. Rodriguez13 September 2015 MIDDLETOWN, California (Associated Press) – At least 100 homes were destroyed by a wildfire in Northern California’s Lake County that raced through dry brush and exploded in size within hours, officials said Sunday. The devastation comes after a separate wildfire to the southeast destroyed at least […]

Thousands flee two fast-moving Northern California wildfires; state of emergency declared

13 September 2015 (AP) – Within 12 hours of igniting, a wildfire burning north of San Francisco had swallowed up more than 60 square miles of land, injured four firefighters and burned highways and buildings, prompting an emergency declaration and forcing thousands to flee. The declaration frees up resources for the blaze, burning about 100 […]

California Democrats cave to Big Oil, drop plan for 50 percent oil cut

By Adam Nagourney9 September 2015 LOS ANGELES (The New York Times) – In a major setback for environmental advocates in California, Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate Democrats abandoned a 50 percent cut in petroleum use by 2030 that was a centerpiece of emissions legislation, blaming an intense campaign against the mandate by the oil industry. […]

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