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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>The COP26 climate conference is underway in Glasgow, Scotland. Here in the Bay Area, KQED’s climate reporters are talking with locals who are working on solutions.\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are repeated climate-driven disasters doing to our minds, bodies and spirit? That’s the question four Santa Rosa Junior College Students set out to answer in the four-part podcast series “\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1047076622/chronic-catastrophe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chronic Catastrophe\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2017, six major wildfires have burned across Sonoma County, killing over 100 people and destroying tens of thousands of buildings. Half of county inhabitants have had to evacuate their homes due to wildfire threat. Months of bad air and public safety power shutoffs have become almost routine. The Russian River spilled over its banks in 2019 after soaking rains, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11729368/photos-rains-bring-floods-to-north-bay-communites\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">swamping roads and flooding homes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977680\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977680\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with long brown hair holds a young girl with light blonde hair and a white dress.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lauren Spates, one of the producers of the Chronic Catastrophe podcast, with her young daughter. \u003ccite>(Lauren Spates, used with permission)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lauren Spates produces the podcast and is a student and teaching assistant at the junior college. She spoke with KQED climate reporter Danielle Venton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cb>You helped produce a podcast that was about climate driven disasters. What inspired that work?\u003c/b>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The podcast is called Chronic Catastrophe. Living in Sonoma County was not easy the past five years. We see hellacious wildfire, but we’ve also lived through floods and through days of bad air, where [smoke from] fires from other places blows over us. We really wanted to think about [this idea]: What is it doing to us? There’s a lot of discussion about the economic and environmental impact of climate change, but there aren’t a lot of people talking about what it does to human beings and their the health of society. And we wanted to fill that hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cb>What are you hoping to contribute to people’s understanding?\u003c/b>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>I hope that listeners start to grasp that climate change is something that is affecting everyone. Even if you don’t really live near California’s fires or by the coast, where the sea level is rising. Climate change affects even our cognitive function, the way we think as humans. It has really broad implications for the health of society as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cb>What are you hoping will happen at COP26 that will affect the work you do?\u003c/b>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>I really hope that the U.S. and that other more developed nations will actually put some teeth behind what they’re talking about. I hope we start to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. It’s not enough. I mean, we really need to move away from fossil fuels and from coal. But you know, there’s also the individual level. There’s the idea that you think globally and act locally. What can you do on a day-to-day basis? It’s not only about what leaders around the world [are doing]. It’s about what we buy, how we spend, what we do each day. And we need to focus on that in addition to what happens in Glasgow.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Are there solutions to the issues that you care about that inspire you?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In the podcast, we talked to Linda Hopkins. She’s the the chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. She’s spoken a lot about building codes and what we need to do in terms of building in a sustainable fashion, but also building in a way that protects human beings from what is going to continue to happen with more devastating fires. We have to think about where we’re building. Are we building in burn scars? Are we allowing that to happen? It’s very complicated, right? The land is expensive. It’s at a premium in the Bay Area. How does local government manage that? Do you buy them out? What do you do? I hope there’s more clarity around that. That’s what’s going to matter most for my children and for who comes next. How do we change what our communities look like so that we can survive?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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The Russian River spilled over its banks in 2019 after soaking rains, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11729368/photos-rains-bring-floods-to-north-bay-communites\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">swamping roads and flooding homes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977680\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977680\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with long brown hair holds a young girl with light blonde hair and a white dress.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/11/Lauren-and-Bea-1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lauren Spates, one of the producers of the Chronic Catastrophe podcast, with her young daughter. \u003ccite>(Lauren Spates, used with permission)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lauren Spates produces the podcast and is a student and teaching assistant at the junior college. 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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated Nov. 1\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s what some are calling \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-55835266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the last, best chance\u003c/a> for world leaders to agree on how to stop catastrophic climate change, and what others \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/states/california/whiteboard/2021/10/27/schwarzenegger-nothing-is-getting-done-at-un-climate-summits-1392090\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">say could be fruitless.\u003c/a> Either way, California will be well represented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/what-is-a-cop/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">26th United Nations climate change conference\u003c/a> will draw global leaders to Glasgow, Scotland, next week, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/10/25/california-governor-newsom-to-attend-united-nations-climate-change-conference-to-call-on-global-community-to-end-reliance-on-oil/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 20-plus official delegation\u003c/a> from California led by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11894391/gov-newsom-abruptly-cancels-trip-to-un-climate-conference\">abrupt cancellation on Friday\u003c/a>. Newsom now plans to attend the conference virtually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meeting comes as the extreme impacts of climate change continue to pummel California, which saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/10/25/sacramento-went-from-record-drought-to-record-rain-climate-change-may-make-that-more-common/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">torrential rains\u003c/a> this week even in the midst of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-water/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a devastating drought\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stakes are high. It’s an important issue in California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/about/people/ken-alex/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ken Alex\u003c/a>, senior policy adviser on climate and environment under former Gov. Jerry Brown and now director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/research/climate/projectclimate/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Project Climate\u003c/a> at UC Berkeley Law. Rattling off climate impacts such as drought, flooding, sea level rise and wildfires, Alex added, “It’s very real for California. California is going to continue on, but we need to see the world join us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s conference is the first since \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/biden-presidency-california-environment/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Joe Biden took office\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/paris-climate-agreement/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rejoined the Paris climate agreement\u003c/a> to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution worldwide, marking a seismic shift in the national approach to tackling climate change. It also marks a fundamental change to California’s role, no longer battling a federal foe in former President Donald Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Brown did a wonderful job with the wicked man from Washington, with saying, ‘We are different from them, and we have our own policy,’” said state \u003ca href=\"https://sd10.senate.ca.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sen. Bob Wieckowski\u003c/a>, who will be attending the climate conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the Fremont Democrat said, Newsom has to go beyond that and show concrete, short-term plans: “He has to write a new chapter on commitment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though California \u003ca href=\"https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/2019-01-23-Duggan.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doesn’t have an official seat\u003c/a> at a negotiating table reserved for nations, the conference is a chance for California to burnish its reputation as a climate leader and weigh in on critical issues, such as carbon trading and methane pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also a chance for lawmakers and top state environmental officials to discuss the state’s climate strategy amongst themselves, now that Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/09/california-recall-election-results/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has survived the Sept. 14 recall election\u003c/a> and is laying the groundwork for his 2022 reelection campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental advocates have \u003ca href=\"https://theclimatecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/COP26-Gov-Newsom-Climate-Policy-Recs-The-Climate-Center-092121.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a wish list of action items for Newsom and his team on the ground\u003c/a>, urging the administration to “meet the moment” by announcing more ambitious climate policies, such as stopping permits for all new oil and gas development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate-minded voters showed up by the millions for Newsom,” Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate Center, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote in a Sacramento Bee commentary\u003c/a>. And at the conference, “we’re expecting him to show up for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Gov. Brown, who has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/leaving-europe-brown-says-hes-talked-enough-wants-get-something-done/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">appeared at the annual summits himself\u003c/a>, said Newsom has to persuade other leaders about the need for action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’ll get ideas from others, and that’s good. But most importantly is to get others to do what California is doing so we’re not the outlier. We don’t want to have rules that the rest of the world doesn’t have,” Brown told CalMatters. “California’s there in an important way because we’re a carbon polluter, and we’re also a carbon problem solver.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, is more skeptical that the conference will lead to meaningful climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=climate-change\"]“What does a promise and a pledge mean in the end? Nothing,” Schwarzenegger \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/g-nxcqigplI?t=3402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said Wednesday at an\u003c/a> environmental justice conference hosted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. “It’s just over and over, year after year, they make these pledges. And they come out, they declare victory, but then nothing is getting done. And so this is what I’m worried about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California enters the conference with some clear climate wins. The state reached its 2020 goals \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-announces-climate-pollution-continues-drop-below-2020-target-while-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to cut greenhouse gas pollution\u003c/a> to 1990 levels \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421519308018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">four years early\u003c/a>, scrubbed carbon from the electricity sector with \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/01/california-renewable-energy-solar-policy-cuts-greenhouse-gases/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ambitious renewable energy standards\u003c/a> and led the nation \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-auto-emissions-standards-fight-with-donald-trump-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with clean car rules\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California is caught in a balancing act. Despite its climate-forward image, it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA#tabs-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the seventh largest producer\u003c/a> of crude oil in the country. And the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top clean air regulator\u003c/a> has warned that California will need much greater cuts in greenhouse gas pollution to reach its goals, which the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/02/audit-overstating-greenhouse-gas-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">state auditor has also said\u003c/a> California will fail to meet if it doesn’t \u003ca href=\"http://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2020-114/introduction.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pick up the pace\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though hundreds of California local, state and federal candidates and politicians have taken the \u003ca href=\"http://nofossilfuelmoney.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">No Fossil Fuel Money\u003c/a> pledge, the executive board of the California Democratic Party \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-10-28/should-california-democrats-take-oil-and-gas-money-the-party-is-torn-boiling-point\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">voted last weekend\u003c/a> to delay a decision and instead study whether to ban contributions from the fossil fuel industry and certain utility companies, including PG&E and Southern California Edison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It certainly sends a message that the party doesn’t care about climate change,” said \u003ca href=\"http://climatehawksvote.com/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RL Miller\u003c/a>, a member of the Democratic National Committee and president of Climate Hawks Vote Political Action, who pushed for the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/newsom-administration-sued-over-thousands-of-unlawful-oil-gas-projects-2021-02-24/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drawn criticism\u003c/a> from environmental advocates for not doing more to curb oil and gas production, which disproportionately affects lower-income communities of color. Last week, however, he publicly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/10/newsom-oil-wells-rules/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">backed tougher rules\u003c/a> for oil and gas wells, \u003ca href=\"https://caleja.org/2021/10/vision-coalition-commends-historic-3200-ft-setback-for-public-health-urges-governor-newsom-to-close-loopholes-and-phase-out-neighborhood-drilling/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a move environmental advocates applauded\u003c/a>, after ordering \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/04/newsom-ban-new-oil-fracking/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a ban on new fracking by 2024\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom does have a habit of overpromising and under delivering. But I think he has a real opportunity at COP26 to be a transformative leader,” Miller said. “People will be listening to the speeches, but equally, listening for action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-you-go-because-everybody-else-is-going\">‘You go because everybody else is going’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/what-is-a-cop/\">Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP26\u003c/a>, is part international negotiation, part political stage and part climate-palooza.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Even with COVID-19 limits, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/en/un-climate-change-conference-cop-26\">190 world leaders and tens of thousands of others\u003c/a> are expected to converge on Glasgow, starting Monday. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, however, pulled out at the last minute \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/uks-queen-elizabeth-will-not-attend-cop26-following-advice-rest-2021-10-26/\">after a hospital visit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program lays out \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Overview_schedule_COP26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">plenary sessions and mandated workshops\u003c/a>, but also “\u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/COP26-Green-Zone-Exhibitors.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">innovative spaces and experiences”\u003c/a> hosted by major corporations including\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Microsoft, Hitachi and the British grocery chain Sainsbury’s. Attendees can visit creative exhibits from local artists, and a showcase of electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s like “a trade association meeting, where most of the people who work on these issues get together and get to see each other and talk to each other and reinforce each other,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/12/mary-nichols-czar-legacy-skies-controversy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mary Nichols\u003c/a>, the former California Air Resources Board chair, told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has attended a half-dozen of them. “You go because everybody else is going, because it’s a good place to see people and follow up or create relationships,” Nichols said. “It’s a global problem, after all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This particular conference comes at a pivotal moment, six years after the landmark COP21 where 196 countries adopted the \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paris Agreement\u003c/a>. The international treaty is aimed at cutting planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution enough to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Global leaders have been hashing out the playbook for the Paris Agreement ever since, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/4-key-issues-to-watch-as-world-leaders-prepare-for-the-glasgow-climate-summit-170536?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20October%2027%202021%20-%202098620738&utm_content=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20October%2027%202021%20-%202098620738+Version+A+CID_c89472bbcef00598126d6acb2c26d1b1&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=lays%20out%20the%20key%20issues%20on%20the%20table%20at%20the%20Glasgow%20summit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">negotiating\u003c/a> over the role of carbon markets in curbing climate change, how to spur further greenhouse gas cuts, and ensuring \u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094762\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">funding\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Delivery-Plan-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">for\u003c/a> developing countries to cover the costs of adapting to a warming world. Though developed nations pledged to contribute \u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094762\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$100 billion per year by 2020\u003c/a>, they \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Delivery-Plan-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">appear to have fallen short\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Paris set the destination — limiting warming well below 2 degrees, aiming for 1.5 degrees — Glasgow must make it a reality, ” \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/negotiations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the COP26 organizers wrote.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the Paris Agreement, governments around the world developed \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their own climate action plans to cut emissions\u003c/a>. Many updated their pledges in the lead-up to the summit. But \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/updated-ndc-synthesis-report-worrying-trends-confirmed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new U.N. report\u003c/a> says that the plans fall woefully short — leading to an increase in global greenhouse gas pollution that could cause temperatures to rise by about 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overshooting the temperature goals will lead to a destabilised world and endless suffering, especially among those who have contributed the least to the [greenhouse gas] emissions in the atmosphere,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/profiles/patricia-espinosa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patricia Espinosa\u003c/a>, executive secretary of the U.N. climate change secretariat, \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/updated-ndc-synthesis-report-worrying-trends-confirmed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “We are nowhere near where science says we should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A changing landscape for the U.S. and California\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Newsom may like to call California a nation-state, but as a subnational government, it doesn’t have an official role in the climate negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has, however, had an outsized voice in international discussions about global warming — providing a clear example that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">economic growth and cuts in carbon emissions\u003c/a> can happen at the same time, in the same place. In 2015, Brown joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.ca.gov/archive/gov39/2015/05/19/news18964/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with the leaders of 11 other states and provinces\u003c/a>, agreeing to limit global temperatures from climbing more than 2 degrees Celsius. The Under2 Coalition says it has since grown \u003ca href=\"https://www.theclimategroup.org/under2-coalition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to include 260 governments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Trump administration abandoned the Paris climate accord, Brown stepped in. As a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/leaving-europe-brown-says-hes-talked-enough-wants-get-something-done/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">de facto climate leader\u003c/a>, he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/gov-jerry-brown-traverses-europe-climate-crusade/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rallied states and regions\u003c/a> at the international summit in 2017 — warning in an interview that “Trump better get on board or get out of the way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stakes for the COP itself are very high, because the U.S. is returning to the fold,” said Alex, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/10/ken-alex-jerry-brown-climate-change-california/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brown’s climate “concierge.”\u003c/a> “California has been very steady for a long time. But in the four years of Trump, California stuck to its guns, its economy continued. And now, we have a lot of credibility worldwide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/paris-climate-agreement/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rejoined the Paris Agreement\u003c/a> almost as soon as he took office in January — pivoting the federal government into position as California’s climate ally, rather than its opponent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Biden prepares to leave for Europe today, he \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-congress-democrats-budget-framework-60a1bc276d0ab8eb3e0347fc54ee8c2c?utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced the “framework”\u003c/a> for an agreement with fellow Democrats in Congress on a massive climate change and social services spending package that \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/28/build-back-better-framework/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">includes $555 billion in clean energy tax credits\u003c/a>, incentives and climate resilience investments. That spending would “turn the climate crisis into an opportunity,” he said at the White House, by significantly reducing carbon emissions by 2030, growing the domestic clean energy industry, putting electric school buses on the road and promoting environmental justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s leadership has been challenged in the last four years, but those headwinds now are tailwinds with the Biden administration. We’re not sparring partners, we’re working partners as it relates to issues of climate change and dealing with the challenges of wildfires,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-gavin-newsom-speech-on-wildfires-transcript-september-13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom said\u003c/a> when Biden visited California in September to \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/13/governor-newsom-welcomes-president-biden-to-california-for-wildfire-briefing-and-caldor-fire-damage-survey/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">survey fire damage\u003c/a> and show his support before the recall election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All eyes should be on the U.S. and China, Brown said, calling everything else a “distraction.” \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-kerry-sullivan-cop26-china-climate/2021/10/25/8429aa96-3502-11ec-9a5d-93a89c74e76d_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tensions\u003c/a> between the two nations could \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-27/china-united-states-climate-cooperation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hinder climate negotiations\u003c/a>. “Without Xi Jinping and Biden being able to work together, then everything else will not succeed,” he said in an interview Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although he hasn’t confirmed his attendance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/xis-not-there-cop26-hopes-dim-chinese-leaders-likely-absence-2021-10-26/\">Xi is widely expected to be a no-show\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not doing enough, and the national leaders, particularly China and the U.S., have to exert themselves and become more imaginative and do more,” Brown said. “The rest of the people are more cheerleading from the stands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the baton on climate change leadership has been passed from governor to governor, starting with Gray Davis, then Schwarzenegger, himself and now Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom is carrying the ball to the next level,” Brown said. “It’s been a continuous movement in the right direction, although not anywhere near where it needs to be to get the job done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s lawmakers have plans of their own for the meeting, including a session with members of the Scottish Parliament to discuss the subnational governments’ climate efforts, Wieckowski said. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/10/two-goals-for-california-at-the-global-climate-conference/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Many in the legislative contingent said\u003c/a> they were eager to bring ideas home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was not a good year for climate policy legislation in the Legislature, and I’m anxious to go and see what other people are doing, and get energized by their efforts — and see if we can’t bring it back to California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://sd17.senate.ca.gov/biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sen. John Laird\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Monterey and former natural resources secretary under Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State \u003ca href=\"https://sd33.senate.ca.gov/biography\">Sen. Lena Gonzalez\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Long Beach and chair of the Senate transportation committee, said her focus will be on clean transportation programs, \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2019/ghg_inventory_trends_00-19.pdf\">the largest source\u003c/a> of greenhouse gases in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transportation has become sort of this really sexy topic, but so important as it pertains to reduction of our [greenhouse gas] emissions,” Gonzalez said. “I’m looking forward to going as chair of transportation and as someone who has a lot of impacts back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"cm_ld_legislator_card-block_6179fda466bb5\" class=\"cm_ld_legislator-card__container \">\n\u003cp>Tackling methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is also \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/cop26-president-designate-6-months-to-go-speech/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on the agenda\u003c/a> — with the U.S. and 31 other countries \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/climate/methane-global-climate.html#:~:text=The%20pledge%2C%20developed%20with%20the,methane%20polluters%20had%20signed%20on.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pledging to cut methane pollution\u003c/a> 30% by 2030. California made its own pledge in 2016, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with a law requiring a 40% cut\u003c/a> to methane pollution by the same deadline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had this target in statute for five years,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/people/katelyn-roedner-sutter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katelyn Roedner Sutter\u003c/a>, a senior manager with the Environmental Defense Fund, which is co-hosting a methane pavilion at the conference. “And we can say these are the things that we’re looking at, and this is what’s worked and what hasn’t worked.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So is the annual summit a big deal for California? “It is, and it isn’t,” Alex said. “This is about the U.S. But California really is an example of where we need to head. And California, of course, needs to go faster as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Charting a new climate course\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Environmental advocates call this meeting an opportunity to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">regain California’s climate ambition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bloom is no longer on the rose of California’s general reputation as a leader,” said environmental advocate Miller. “California has an opportunity to reclaim its mantle as a leader, but only if Gavin Newsom starts taking seriously the process of winding down the fossil fuel industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the conversation at the annual summit will be establishing rules around emissions trading. But \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/05/checking-the-math-on-cap-and-trade-some-experts-say-its-not-adding-up/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">independent experts\u003c/a> and state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/06/california-climate-strategy-cap-trade/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lawmakers\u003c/a> have raised concerns that California’s landmark cap-and-trade program — the first in the nation to create a carbon market for all segments of the economy — might be too weak to reach the state’s greenhouse gas targets. Nearly a decade after its launch, California \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2019/06/oregon-carbon-cap-trade-bill-california-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has not enticed\u003c/a> any other western states to join its cap-and-trade program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neena Mohan, climate justice program manager for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said that climate solutions must prioritize direct reductions in emissions and called on Newsom to champion “California’s bold actions toward an oil and gas phase-out and end to neighborhood drilling, while sharing the lessons learned from the failures of cap and trade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for transportation, \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/resources/2020/Assessing-California's-Climate-Policies-03042020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office\u003c/a> said last year it remains largely unclear how effectively California’s policies are reducing climate-warming pollution from cars and trucks. The state auditor in February slammed the California Air Resources Board for overestimating the greenhouse gas cuts from \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/02/audit-overstating-greenhouse-gas-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clean car incentive programs\u003c/a>. Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/09/california-ban-gasoline-powered-cars-in-2035/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ordered the air board to come up with a plan\u003c/a> for phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, but the regulations are still in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, in September, Newsom signed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/23/governor-newsom-signs-climate-action-bills-outlines-historic-15-billion-package-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-and-protect-vulnerable-communities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$15 billion climate package\u003c/a>, which The Climate Center’s Cohen \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote\u003c/a> was “a strong start.” And Miller said she was heartened to see Newsom’s backing of health and safety buffer zones around new oil and gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom did survive this recall handily, and I think he’s now looking at what he wants to do for not just the remainder of this term but for his next term,” Miller said. “And rather than be content with simply implementing the Jerry Brown policies, I think he’s genuinely beginning to grapple with phasing out oil production in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-pullquote amp-wp-8d3b884\" data-amp-original-style=\"border-color:#F4BB32\">\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "State leaders are attending the major international conference to make a statement on California climate change policy.",
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"title": "What's at Stake for California at U.N. Climate Conference? | KQED",
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"headline": "What's at Stake for California at U.N. Climate Conference?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Updated Nov. 1\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s what some are calling \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-55835266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the last, best chance\u003c/a> for world leaders to agree on how to stop catastrophic climate change, and what others \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/states/california/whiteboard/2021/10/27/schwarzenegger-nothing-is-getting-done-at-un-climate-summits-1392090\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">say could be fruitless.\u003c/a> Either way, California will be well represented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/what-is-a-cop/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">26th United Nations climate change conference\u003c/a> will draw global leaders to Glasgow, Scotland, next week, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/10/25/california-governor-newsom-to-attend-united-nations-climate-change-conference-to-call-on-global-community-to-end-reliance-on-oil/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 20-plus official delegation\u003c/a> from California led by Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11894391/gov-newsom-abruptly-cancels-trip-to-un-climate-conference\">abrupt cancellation on Friday\u003c/a>. Newsom now plans to attend the conference virtually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meeting comes as the extreme impacts of climate change continue to pummel California, which saw \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/10/25/sacramento-went-from-record-drought-to-record-rain-climate-change-may-make-that-more-common/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">torrential rains\u003c/a> this week even in the midst of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-drought-water/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a devastating drought\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stakes are high. It’s an important issue in California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/about/people/ken-alex/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ken Alex\u003c/a>, senior policy adviser on climate and environment under former Gov. Jerry Brown and now director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/clee/research/climate/projectclimate/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Project Climate\u003c/a> at UC Berkeley Law. Rattling off climate impacts such as drought, flooding, sea level rise and wildfires, Alex added, “It’s very real for California. California is going to continue on, but we need to see the world join us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year’s conference is the first since \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/biden-presidency-california-environment/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Joe Biden took office\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/paris-climate-agreement/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rejoined the Paris climate agreement\u003c/a> to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution worldwide, marking a seismic shift in the national approach to tackling climate change. It also marks a fundamental change to California’s role, no longer battling a federal foe in former President Donald Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Brown did a wonderful job with the wicked man from Washington, with saying, ‘We are different from them, and we have our own policy,’” said state \u003ca href=\"https://sd10.senate.ca.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sen. Bob Wieckowski\u003c/a>, who will be attending the climate conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the Fremont Democrat said, Newsom has to go beyond that and show concrete, short-term plans: “He has to write a new chapter on commitment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though California \u003ca href=\"https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/2019-01-23-Duggan.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doesn’t have an official seat\u003c/a> at a negotiating table reserved for nations, the conference is a chance for California to burnish its reputation as a climate leader and weigh in on critical issues, such as carbon trading and methane pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also a chance for lawmakers and top state environmental officials to discuss the state’s climate strategy amongst themselves, now that Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/09/california-recall-election-results/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has survived the Sept. 14 recall election\u003c/a> and is laying the groundwork for his 2022 reelection campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental advocates have \u003ca href=\"https://theclimatecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/COP26-Gov-Newsom-Climate-Policy-Recs-The-Climate-Center-092121.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a wish list of action items for Newsom and his team on the ground\u003c/a>, urging the administration to “meet the moment” by announcing more ambitious climate policies, such as stopping permits for all new oil and gas development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate-minded voters showed up by the millions for Newsom,” Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate Center, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote in a Sacramento Bee commentary\u003c/a>. And at the conference, “we’re expecting him to show up for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Gov. Brown, who has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/leaving-europe-brown-says-hes-talked-enough-wants-get-something-done/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">appeared at the annual summits himself\u003c/a>, said Newsom has to persuade other leaders about the need for action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’ll get ideas from others, and that’s good. But most importantly is to get others to do what California is doing so we’re not the outlier. We don’t want to have rules that the rest of the world doesn’t have,” Brown told CalMatters. “California’s there in an important way because we’re a carbon polluter, and we’re also a carbon problem solver.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, is more skeptical that the conference will lead to meaningful climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“What does a promise and a pledge mean in the end? Nothing,” Schwarzenegger \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/g-nxcqigplI?t=3402\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said Wednesday at an\u003c/a> environmental justice conference hosted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. “It’s just over and over, year after year, they make these pledges. And they come out, they declare victory, but then nothing is getting done. And so this is what I’m worried about.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California enters the conference with some clear climate wins. The state reached its 2020 goals \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/governor-newsom-announces-climate-pollution-continues-drop-below-2020-target-while-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to cut greenhouse gas pollution\u003c/a> to 1990 levels \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421519308018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">four years early\u003c/a>, scrubbed carbon from the electricity sector with \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/01/california-renewable-energy-solar-policy-cuts-greenhouse-gases/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ambitious renewable energy standards\u003c/a> and led the nation \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-auto-emissions-standards-fight-with-donald-trump-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with clean car rules\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California is caught in a balancing act. Despite its climate-forward image, it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA#tabs-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the seventh largest producer\u003c/a> of crude oil in the country. And the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top clean air regulator\u003c/a> has warned that California will need much greater cuts in greenhouse gas pollution to reach its goals, which the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/02/audit-overstating-greenhouse-gas-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">state auditor has also said\u003c/a> California will fail to meet if it doesn’t \u003ca href=\"http://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2020-114/introduction.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pick up the pace\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though hundreds of California local, state and federal candidates and politicians have taken the \u003ca href=\"http://nofossilfuelmoney.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">No Fossil Fuel Money\u003c/a> pledge, the executive board of the California Democratic Party \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-10-28/should-california-democrats-take-oil-and-gas-money-the-party-is-torn-boiling-point\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">voted last weekend\u003c/a> to delay a decision and instead study whether to ban contributions from the fossil fuel industry and certain utility companies, including PG&E and Southern California Edison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It certainly sends a message that the party doesn’t care about climate change,” said \u003ca href=\"http://climatehawksvote.com/about/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RL Miller\u003c/a>, a member of the Democratic National Committee and president of Climate Hawks Vote Political Action, who pushed for the vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/newsom-administration-sued-over-thousands-of-unlawful-oil-gas-projects-2021-02-24/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">drawn criticism\u003c/a> from environmental advocates for not doing more to curb oil and gas production, which disproportionately affects lower-income communities of color. Last week, however, he publicly \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/10/newsom-oil-wells-rules/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">backed tougher rules\u003c/a> for oil and gas wells, \u003ca href=\"https://caleja.org/2021/10/vision-coalition-commends-historic-3200-ft-setback-for-public-health-urges-governor-newsom-to-close-loopholes-and-phase-out-neighborhood-drilling/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a move environmental advocates applauded\u003c/a>, after ordering \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/04/newsom-ban-new-oil-fracking/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a ban on new fracking by 2024\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom does have a habit of overpromising and under delivering. But I think he has a real opportunity at COP26 to be a transformative leader,” Miller said. “People will be listening to the speeches, but equally, listening for action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3 id=\"h-you-go-because-everybody-else-is-going\">‘You go because everybody else is going’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/what-is-a-cop/\">Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP26\u003c/a>, is part international negotiation, part political stage and part climate-palooza.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Even with COVID-19 limits, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/en/un-climate-change-conference-cop-26\">190 world leaders and tens of thousands of others\u003c/a> are expected to converge on Glasgow, starting Monday. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, however, pulled out at the last minute \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/uks-queen-elizabeth-will-not-attend-cop26-following-advice-rest-2021-10-26/\">after a hospital visit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program lays out \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Overview_schedule_COP26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">plenary sessions and mandated workshops\u003c/a>, but also “\u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/COP26-Green-Zone-Exhibitors.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">innovative spaces and experiences”\u003c/a> hosted by major corporations including\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Microsoft, Hitachi and the British grocery chain Sainsbury’s. Attendees can visit creative exhibits from local artists, and a showcase of electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s like “a trade association meeting, where most of the people who work on these issues get together and get to see each other and talk to each other and reinforce each other,” \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/12/mary-nichols-czar-legacy-skies-controversy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mary Nichols\u003c/a>, the former California Air Resources Board chair, told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has attended a half-dozen of them. “You go because everybody else is going, because it’s a good place to see people and follow up or create relationships,” Nichols said. “It’s a global problem, after all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This particular conference comes at a pivotal moment, six years after the landmark COP21 where 196 countries adopted the \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paris Agreement\u003c/a>. The international treaty is aimed at cutting planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution enough to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Global leaders have been hashing out the playbook for the Paris Agreement ever since, \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/4-key-issues-to-watch-as-world-leaders-prepare-for-the-glasgow-climate-summit-170536?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20October%2027%202021%20-%202098620738&utm_content=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20October%2027%202021%20-%202098620738+Version+A+CID_c89472bbcef00598126d6acb2c26d1b1&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=lays%20out%20the%20key%20issues%20on%20the%20table%20at%20the%20Glasgow%20summit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">negotiating\u003c/a> over the role of carbon markets in curbing climate change, how to spur further greenhouse gas cuts, and ensuring \u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094762\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">funding\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Delivery-Plan-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">for\u003c/a> developing countries to cover the costs of adapting to a warming world. Though developed nations pledged to contribute \u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094762\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$100 billion per year by 2020\u003c/a>, they \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Climate-Finance-Delivery-Plan-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">appear to have fallen short\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Paris set the destination — limiting warming well below 2 degrees, aiming for 1.5 degrees — Glasgow must make it a reality, ” \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/uk-presidency/negotiations/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the COP26 organizers wrote.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the Paris Agreement, governments around the world developed \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their own climate action plans to cut emissions\u003c/a>. Many updated their pledges in the lead-up to the summit. But \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/updated-ndc-synthesis-report-worrying-trends-confirmed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a new U.N. report\u003c/a> says that the plans fall woefully short — leading to an increase in global greenhouse gas pollution that could cause temperatures to rise by about 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Overshooting the temperature goals will lead to a destabilised world and endless suffering, especially among those who have contributed the least to the [greenhouse gas] emissions in the atmosphere,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/profiles/patricia-espinosa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patricia Espinosa\u003c/a>, executive secretary of the U.N. climate change secretariat, \u003ca href=\"https://unfccc.int/news/updated-ndc-synthesis-report-worrying-trends-confirmed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “We are nowhere near where science says we should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A changing landscape for the U.S. and California\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Newsom may like to call California a nation-state, but as a subnational government, it doesn’t have an official role in the climate negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has, however, had an outsized voice in international discussions about global warming — providing a clear example that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/latest-state-greenhouse-gas-inventory-shows-emissions-continue-drop-below-2020-target\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">economic growth and cuts in carbon emissions\u003c/a> can happen at the same time, in the same place. In 2015, Brown joined \u003ca href=\"https://www.ca.gov/archive/gov39/2015/05/19/news18964/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with the leaders of 11 other states and provinces\u003c/a>, agreeing to limit global temperatures from climbing more than 2 degrees Celsius. The Under2 Coalition says it has since grown \u003ca href=\"https://www.theclimategroup.org/under2-coalition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to include 260 governments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Trump administration abandoned the Paris climate accord, Brown stepped in. As a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/leaving-europe-brown-says-hes-talked-enough-wants-get-something-done/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">de facto climate leader\u003c/a>, he \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/gov-jerry-brown-traverses-europe-climate-crusade/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rallied states and regions\u003c/a> at the international summit in 2017 — warning in an interview that “Trump better get on board or get out of the way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The stakes for the COP itself are very high, because the U.S. is returning to the fold,” said Alex, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/10/ken-alex-jerry-brown-climate-change-california/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brown’s climate “concierge.”\u003c/a> “California has been very steady for a long time. But in the four years of Trump, California stuck to its guns, its economy continued. And now, we have a lot of credibility worldwide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/paris-climate-agreement/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rejoined the Paris Agreement\u003c/a> almost as soon as he took office in January — pivoting the federal government into position as California’s climate ally, rather than its opponent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Biden prepares to leave for Europe today, he \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-congress-democrats-budget-framework-60a1bc276d0ab8eb3e0347fc54ee8c2c?utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced the “framework”\u003c/a> for an agreement with fellow Democrats in Congress on a massive climate change and social services spending package that \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/28/build-back-better-framework/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">includes $555 billion in clean energy tax credits\u003c/a>, incentives and climate resilience investments. That spending would “turn the climate crisis into an opportunity,” he said at the White House, by significantly reducing carbon emissions by 2030, growing the domestic clean energy industry, putting electric school buses on the road and promoting environmental justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s leadership has been challenged in the last four years, but those headwinds now are tailwinds with the Biden administration. We’re not sparring partners, we’re working partners as it relates to issues of climate change and dealing with the challenges of wildfires,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-gavin-newsom-speech-on-wildfires-transcript-september-13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom said\u003c/a> when Biden visited California in September to \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/13/governor-newsom-welcomes-president-biden-to-california-for-wildfire-briefing-and-caldor-fire-damage-survey/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">survey fire damage\u003c/a> and show his support before the recall election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All eyes should be on the U.S. and China, Brown said, calling everything else a “distraction.” \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-kerry-sullivan-cop26-china-climate/2021/10/25/8429aa96-3502-11ec-9a5d-93a89c74e76d_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tensions\u003c/a> between the two nations could \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-27/china-united-states-climate-cooperation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hinder climate negotiations\u003c/a>. “Without Xi Jinping and Biden being able to work together, then everything else will not succeed,” he said in an interview Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although he hasn’t confirmed his attendance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/xis-not-there-cop26-hopes-dim-chinese-leaders-likely-absence-2021-10-26/\">Xi is widely expected to be a no-show\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not doing enough, and the national leaders, particularly China and the U.S., have to exert themselves and become more imaginative and do more,” Brown said. “The rest of the people are more cheerleading from the stands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the baton on climate change leadership has been passed from governor to governor, starting with Gray Davis, then Schwarzenegger, himself and now Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom is carrying the ball to the next level,” Brown said. “It’s been a continuous movement in the right direction, although not anywhere near where it needs to be to get the job done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s lawmakers have plans of their own for the meeting, including a session with members of the Scottish Parliament to discuss the subnational governments’ climate efforts, Wieckowski said. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/10/two-goals-for-california-at-the-global-climate-conference/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Many in the legislative contingent said\u003c/a> they were eager to bring ideas home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was not a good year for climate policy legislation in the Legislature, and I’m anxious to go and see what other people are doing, and get energized by their efforts — and see if we can’t bring it back to California,” said \u003ca href=\"https://sd17.senate.ca.gov/biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sen. John Laird\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Monterey and former natural resources secretary under Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State \u003ca href=\"https://sd33.senate.ca.gov/biography\">Sen. Lena Gonzalez\u003c/a>, a Democrat from Long Beach and chair of the Senate transportation committee, said her focus will be on clean transportation programs, \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/cc/inventory/pubs/reports/2000_2019/ghg_inventory_trends_00-19.pdf\">the largest source\u003c/a> of greenhouse gases in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transportation has become sort of this really sexy topic, but so important as it pertains to reduction of our [greenhouse gas] emissions,” Gonzalez said. “I’m looking forward to going as chair of transportation and as someone who has a lot of impacts back home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"cm_ld_legislator_card-block_6179fda466bb5\" class=\"cm_ld_legislator-card__container \">\n\u003cp>Tackling methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is also \u003ca href=\"https://ukcop26.org/cop26-president-designate-6-months-to-go-speech/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on the agenda\u003c/a> — with the U.S. and 31 other countries \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/climate/methane-global-climate.html#:~:text=The%20pledge%2C%20developed%20with%20the,methane%20polluters%20had%20signed%20on.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pledging to cut methane pollution\u003c/a> 30% by 2030. California made its own pledge in 2016, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with a law requiring a 40% cut\u003c/a> to methane pollution by the same deadline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had this target in statute for five years,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/people/katelyn-roedner-sutter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katelyn Roedner Sutter\u003c/a>, a senior manager with the Environmental Defense Fund, which is co-hosting a methane pavilion at the conference. “And we can say these are the things that we’re looking at, and this is what’s worked and what hasn’t worked.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So is the annual summit a big deal for California? “It is, and it isn’t,” Alex said. “This is about the U.S. But California really is an example of where we need to head. And California, of course, needs to go faster as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Charting a new climate course\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Environmental advocates call this meeting an opportunity to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">regain California’s climate ambition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bloom is no longer on the rose of California’s general reputation as a leader,” said environmental advocate Miller. “California has an opportunity to reclaim its mantle as a leader, but only if Gavin Newsom starts taking seriously the process of winding down the fossil fuel industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of the conversation at the annual summit will be establishing rules around emissions trading. But \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/05/checking-the-math-on-cap-and-trade-some-experts-say-its-not-adding-up/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">independent experts\u003c/a> and state \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/06/california-climate-strategy-cap-trade/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lawmakers\u003c/a> have raised concerns that California’s landmark cap-and-trade program — the first in the nation to create a carbon market for all segments of the economy — might be too weak to reach the state’s greenhouse gas targets. Nearly a decade after its launch, California \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2019/06/oregon-carbon-cap-trade-bill-california-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has not enticed\u003c/a> any other western states to join its cap-and-trade program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neena Mohan, climate justice program manager for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said that climate solutions must prioritize direct reductions in emissions and called on Newsom to champion “California’s bold actions toward an oil and gas phase-out and end to neighborhood drilling, while sharing the lessons learned from the failures of cap and trade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for transportation, \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/resources/2020/Assessing-California's-Climate-Policies-03042020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office\u003c/a> said last year it remains largely unclear how effectively California’s policies are reducing climate-warming pollution from cars and trucks. The state auditor in February slammed the California Air Resources Board for overestimating the greenhouse gas cuts from \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2021/02/audit-overstating-greenhouse-gas-cuts/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clean car incentive programs\u003c/a>. Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/09/california-ban-gasoline-powered-cars-in-2035/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ordered the air board to come up with a plan\u003c/a> for phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, but the regulations are still in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, in September, Newsom signed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/23/governor-newsom-signs-climate-action-bills-outlines-historic-15-billion-package-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-and-protect-vulnerable-communities/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$15 billion climate package\u003c/a>, which The Climate Center’s Cohen \u003ca href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article254929682.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wrote\u003c/a> was “a strong start.” And Miller said she was heartened to see Newsom’s backing of health and safety buffer zones around new oil and gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Newsom did survive this recall handily, and I think he’s now looking at what he wants to do for not just the remainder of this term but for his next term,” Miller said. “And rather than be content with simply implementing the Jerry Brown policies, I think he’s genuinely beginning to grapple with phasing out oil production in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-pullquote amp-wp-8d3b884\" data-amp-original-style=\"border-color:#F4BB32\">\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Wildfires Burning in California's Giant Sequoia Groves Threaten Hundreds of Ancient Trees",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Northern California wildfires may have killed hundreds of giant sequoias as they swept through groves of the majestic monarchs in the Sierra Nevada, an official said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">“It’s heartbreaking,” said Christy Brigham, head of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The lightning-caused KNP Complex that erupted on Sept. 9 has burned into 15 giant sequoia groves in the park, Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">More than 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze in sometimes treacherous terrain. On Wednesday afternoon, four people working on the fire were injured when a tree fell on them, the National Park Service reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The four were airlifted to hospitals and “while the injuries are serious, they are in stable condition,” the report said. It didn’t provide other details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The KNP Complex was only 11% contained after burning 134 square miles of forest. Cooler weather has helped slow the flames and the area could see some slight rain on Friday, forecasters said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The fire’s impact on giant sequoia groves was mixed. Most saw low- to medium-intensity fire behavior that the sequoias have evolved to survive, Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"Component-dfp-0-2-56\">\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">However, it appeared that two groves — including one with 5,000 trees — were seared by high-intensity fire that can send up 100-foot flames capable of burning the canopies of the towering trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">That leaves the monarchs at risk of going up “like a horrible Roman candle,” Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Two burned trees fell in Giant Forest, which is home to about 2,000 sequoias, including the General Sherman Tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume. However, the most notable trees survived and Brigham said the grove appeared to be mostly intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Firefighters have taken extraordinary measures to protect the sequoias by wrapping fire-resistant material around the bases of some giants, raking and clearing vegetation around them, installing sprinklers and dousing some with water or fire retardant gel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">However, the full extent of the damage won’t be known for months, Brigham said. Firefighters are still occupied protecting trees, homes and lives or can’t safely reach steep, remote groves that lack roads or even trails, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">To the south, the Windy Fire had burned at least 74 sequoias, Garrett Dickman told the Los Angeles Times. The wildfire botanist has recorded damage as part of a sequoia task force preparing and assessing trees in the fire zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">In one grove, Dickman counted 29 sequoias that were “just incinerated,” he told CNN.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">“There were four of those that had burned so hot that they’d fallen over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The 152-acre fire was 75% contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Northern California wildfires may have killed hundreds of giant sequoias as they swept through groves of the majestic monarchs in the Sierra Nevada, an official said Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">“It’s heartbreaking,” said Christy Brigham, head of resource management and science for Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The lightning-caused KNP Complex that erupted on Sept. 9 has burned into 15 giant sequoia groves in the park, Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">More than 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze in sometimes treacherous terrain. On Wednesday afternoon, four people working on the fire were injured when a tree fell on them, the National Park Service reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The four were airlifted to hospitals and “while the injuries are serious, they are in stable condition,” the report said. It didn’t provide other details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The KNP Complex was only 11% contained after burning 134 square miles of forest. Cooler weather has helped slow the flames and the area could see some slight rain on Friday, forecasters said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The fire’s impact on giant sequoia groves was mixed. Most saw low- to medium-intensity fire behavior that the sequoias have evolved to survive, Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"Component-dfp-0-2-56\">\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">However, it appeared that two groves — including one with 5,000 trees — were seared by high-intensity fire that can send up 100-foot flames capable of burning the canopies of the towering trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">That leaves the monarchs at risk of going up “like a horrible Roman candle,” Brigham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Two burned trees fell in Giant Forest, which is home to about 2,000 sequoias, including the General Sherman Tree, which is considered the world’s largest by volume. However, the most notable trees survived and Brigham said the grove appeared to be mostly intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">Firefighters have taken extraordinary measures to protect the sequoias by wrapping fire-resistant material around the bases of some giants, raking and clearing vegetation around them, installing sprinklers and dousing some with water or fire retardant gel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">However, the full extent of the damage won’t be known for months, Brigham said. Firefighters are still occupied protecting trees, homes and lives or can’t safely reach steep, remote groves that lack roads or even trails, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">To the south, the Windy Fire had burned at least 74 sequoias, Garrett Dickman told the Los Angeles Times. The wildfire botanist has recorded damage as part of a sequoia task force preparing and assessing trees in the fire zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">In one grove, Dickman counted 29 sequoias that were “just incinerated,” he told CNN.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">“There were four of those that had burned so hot that they’d fallen over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"Component-root-0-2-61 Component-p-0-2-52\">The 152-acre fire was 75% contained.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Wildfire Torched the Sierra All Summer, Evading Containment. Here’s How Tahoe Protected Itself",
"headTitle": "Wildfire Torched the Sierra All Summer, Evading Containment. Here’s How Tahoe Protected Itself | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Susie Kocher watched with increasing dread as the Caldor Fire roared across the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, churning toward her home near the base of Echo Summit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From high along the granite ridge nearby, the view of Lake Tahoe is normally pristine — a cerulean ocean in the sky, dotted with boats and casinos lining the pine forest along the South Shore. But for two weeks at the end of August, smoke as brown as car exhaust clouded the basin’s air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Kocher well knows, having worked tirelessly for more than a decade to prepare this community for a wildfire as a UC Cooperative Extension forestry adviser, under almost every tree near South Lake Tahoe is a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She feared the fast approaching edge of the fire, with its flames licking beyond 100 feet in the air. But she worried most about showers of red hot embers, carried over a mile beyond the fire’s edge by wind gusts, stealing entrance into these homes through open vents or siding gaps, burning them from the inside out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A firefighter is not going to help your home if the ember goes in through the attic,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the fire approached, she cleared away needles and brush from around her house. With their truck, Kocher’s husband, Rick George, hauled their sailboat and other fire hazards to a vacant lot away from their home. She collected her “wedding dress, my husband’s silver and his mother’s wedding dress,” irreplaceable items to take with her when they evacuated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 30, officials ordered South Lake Tahoe to evacuate immediately. She joined thousands of others leaving en masse, her face obscured by a heavy blue and red respirator to protect her lungs from the hazardous smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind her as she drove away, ash and a hazy amber glow floated around her home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/UCsierraforest/status/1432458308812619779\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The ‘wake-up moment’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When the Valley Fire in Lake County destroyed 1,300 homes and killed four people in 2015, the wildfire community called it a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976490/showing-climate-change-as-it-happens-a-veteran-photojournalist-on-capturing-californias-intensifying-wildfires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wake-up moment\u003c/a>” to an era of catastrophic wildfire in California, driven in part by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Caldor, Dixie and other fires this summer make it crystal clear that California’s wildfire crisis is escalating. About 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, a record that could be surpassed by this year’s extreme fire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is in a dangerous place. Scorching summers coupled with tinderbox dry forests render fire containment ineffective — especially when it’s hot, windy or a combination of the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Caldor Fire burned into the Tahoe Basin, it looked like this city, a center of gravity for culture in this part of the Sierra, could (and many thought would) burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it did not, thanks to the 3,500 firefighters, a timely shift in the winds and years of fire preparations by a myriad of players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Caldor Fire showed the danger California faces, but also a path forward, beginning with \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/09/09/interview-pyrogeographer-crystal-kolden-on-fighting-californias-modern-megafires/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acceptance that wildfires are a part of our lives\u003c/a> and not inherently bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976869/heres-whats-inside-newsoms-whopping-15-billion-climate-spending-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acknowledged\u003c/a> as much when he detailed about $1 billion in new spending for fire breaks, tree thinning and other measures meant to prevent catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not going to respond our way out of this wildfire crisis,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A “confluence of all the right ingredients” coalesced to drive the Caldor Fire’s erratic fire behavior, accelerating the arrival of conditions expected to emerge over the next century, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.dri.edu/directory/benjamin-hatchett/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Benjamin Hatchett,\u003c/a> an atmospheric scientist with the Desert Research Institute in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope Tahoe is the wake-up call,” he said. “We all need to get together and figure out what we’re going to do so that it’s not Tahoe City next year or Truckee next year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1977050 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842.jpg\" alt=\"Fire crews manage a back fire while fighting the Caldor Fire. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fire crews manage a back fire in Sly Park, Calif., fighting the Caldor Fire on Monday, Aug, 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>‘Hat’s off’ for forest thinning\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The Caldor Fire ignited on Aug. 14 near Pollock Pines in El Dorado County, and quickly decimated Grizzly Flats, burning a school, church and the post office, leaving little left in the mountain hamlet. To date, the fire has burned more than 1,000 buildings and north of 220,000 acres. Officials lifted the last of the evacuation orders just \u003ca href=\"https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FA4qSO7VcAEVKRE.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/pyrogeog/status/1435358566139904005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A few days earlier\u003c/a>, the Dixie Fire burned across Kettle Ridge, west of Susanville, and into the Great Basin, becoming the first known wildfire to run across the Sierra Nevada. The flames ripped through high elevation forests usually too saturated with heavy snow melt to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977051\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977051\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208.jpg\" alt=\"A burned entrance sign at Walter Tyler Elementary school with charred playground equipment in the background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walter Tyler Elementary in Grizzly Flats, Calif. Tuesday, August 17, 2021. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any record of that happening before,” Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter said, adding the blaze — 32 times the size of San Francisco — “was exceedingly resistant to control.” The Dixie Fire is California’s largest single fire on record, having consumed nearly 1 million acres across five counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of August, the Caldor Fire had burned into the Tahoe Basin, becoming the second recorded fire to cross the Sierra Nevada. Its erratic fire behavior \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/08/19/caldor-fires-explosive-growth-following-dixie-fires-playbook/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mirrored the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> to the north, and residents watched with alarm as the embers ignited spot fires miles in front of the flames, like missiles shot from behind enemy lines, rendering firefighter containment lines — painstakingly hacked with hand tools and bulldozers — essentially useless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For firefighters, this year has been a grueling slog, and the last two weeks of August were some of the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since we got here, our first time actually sleeping was yesterday,” said Micah Conant, nearly a week into a shift at the Caldor Fire with his Tahoe Douglas Fire Department crew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The firefighters’ main objective: keep the blaze out of South Lake Tahoe, a dense mountain city of more than 21,000 people, and the surrounding communities, home of Kocher and thousands more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a first line of defense, crews with bulldozers scraped earth bare against homes in Meyers and Christmas Valley, where they expected to make a desperate stand, said Phil Heitzke, a fuels specialist with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the wildfire charged towards the fire line, “we were getting 100 or 150 foot flame lengths,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977052\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977052\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cut stumps in the forest near South Lake Tahoe show where preventative forest thinning took place before the Caldor Fire burned the area. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But suddenly, the flames lowered to the forest floor. Firefighters crossed the dozer lines, safely able to work next to the flames, steering the wildfire away from the homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fire behavior dropped down as soon as it hit this unit,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If crews hadn’t thinned small trees and brush here a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The canopy is open, and that’s the key thing with these fires, having that open canopy so the [wildfire] can’t sustain a crown run” where the fire burns from treetop to treetop, Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the folks who have been working on these projects the last two decades my hat’s off to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A built-in buffer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Tens of thousands of acres have been treated in the Lake Tahoe Basin in the last 15 years, more than is typical for forested mountain communities. The work is not cheap. Paying crews with chain saws to thin overgrown forests can cost around $2,000 an acre.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1977041\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/KQED_Caldor-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"887\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comparing that against the value of homes saved — recent home sales in the area have garnered a median price of $750,000 — it looks like a good investment. But here, Lake Tahoe is privileged. The city has a much larger population than most mountain towns and boasts a wealthy, largely white conservation community that can afford to pay for expertise needed to get good at winning competitive grants. “There’s a political pressure there,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents and others have treated more than 40% of the Tahoe Basin since 2008 with mechanical thinning and “good fire,” the intentional burning of thick underbrush to slow down future wildfires. Additionally, hundreds of homeowners around the Tahoe Basin have prepared their houses and properties to withstand wildfire including cleaning needles, trees and debris around homes, and installing new roofs and vent covers to prevent embers from getting inside a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services6.arcgis.com/1KtlSd2mklZMBKaz/ArcGIS/rest/services/Tahoe_Forest_Fuels_Tx_OFFICIAL_Public_View/FeatureServer&source=sd\">map\u003c/a> of treatments in the area shows an extensive, though patchy, jigsaw puzzle of mechanical thinning and pile burns on both sides of Highway 50. The Forest Service said in the past five years many of those fuel treatments in the Tahoe Basin included prescribed fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“South Lake Tahoe and that whole area has done an absolutely extraordinary job of doing a lot of work to reduce fuels,” said Crystal Kolden, a UC Merced fire scientist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Larsen’s home is about a block away from where the Caldor Fire stopped. He credits the areas of treated forest with saving his and his neighbors homes and said the 2007 Angora Fire, which incinerated 240 homes southwest of South Lake Tahoe, galvanized the community around fire preparations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#9.69/39.0438/-120.1474\" style=\"border: 0px #ffffff none;\" name=\"myiFrame\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" marginheight=\"0px\" marginwidth=\"0px\" height=\"500px\" width=\"100%\" allowfullscreen class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Angora] highlighted the importance of doing something about the overstocked forest and trying to make sure that homeowners are doing the work that they need to do to provide that defensible space,” Larsen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of forest treatments, he said his neighborhood had a “buffer between sort of the very hot fire and fire that was more manageable, I think is a big part of why they were able to succeed and why we are so lucky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977053\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977053\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Larsen stands in the forest near his home. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Fire here is expected\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For roughly four decades, California wildfires have advanced higher and higher into the backcountry, rising in elevation at a rate of 25 feet per year, with the largest growth in the Sierra Nevada, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://tahoe.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk4286/files/inline-files/Warming_Enabled_e2009717118.full_.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new study\u003c/a> from researchers at UC Merced and elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say the fire’s spread is driven by warmer and dryer conditions with snow melting earlier in the year. Warming temperatures have driven a fivefold increase in summertime forest fires across California, felt most dramatically in the Sierra Nevada, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1944993/study-climate-change-a-leading-driver-of-californias-wildfires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">research published in 2019, a year before last summer’s record-torching fire season\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://tahoe.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/257/2020/04/Integrated-Vulnerability-Assessment-of-Climate-Change-in-the-Lake-Tahoe-Basin_2020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Tahoe Conservancy’s assessment of the Lake Tahoe Basin’s vulnerability to climate change\u003c/a>, the basin can expect to see higher temperatures, more extreme storms, less snow, more drought stress and larger areas burned by wildfires over the next century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that’s happening today,” said South Lake Tahoe Mayor Pro Tem Devin Middlebrook. “[Preparing for big fires] isn’t something that we can put off for 20 or 30 years,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977057\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A CalFire truck drives on a smoke-filled Highway 50 between Pollock Pines and Strawberry, as the Caldor Fire burns nearby. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Culture of suppression\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say a policy of fire prevention has left forest stands across the state thick with overgrown brush and trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Great Fire of 1910, which burned 20 million acres across the northwest and killed 86 people, California forest managers began actively suppressing wildfires. The majority of the tens of millions of acres of forest in California are controlled by the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1935, that agency passed the 10 a.m. rule, a mandate dictating any fire must be controlled by the next day at 10 a.m. Although this policy was rescinded in 1974, this way of managing forests has led to more than 80 years of suppressing fires by federal firefighters and Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What experts say is often missing from this conversation is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/09/16/the-racist-removal-of-native-americans-in-california-is-often-missing-from-wildfire-discussions-experts-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">racist removal of Native American people\u003c/a> from California in the mid-19th century. More than \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/revealing-the-history-of-genocide-against-californias-native-americans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">16,000 were killed\u003c/a>, others were forced onto reservations and many were enslaved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with their physical beings, the knowledge of taking care of the land through forest thinning and cultural burns was also removed. This action resulted in overgrown forests, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.csuchico.edu/geop/department/dhankins.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don Hankins\u003c/a>, a Plains Miwok fire expert at Chico State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California was “still stewarded continuously with Indigenous fire, we would definitely not see the same level of fires that we’re seeing,” he said in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are indications that the state is changing its fire policies. Having spent \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/hub/california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$3.4 billion on wildfire suppression last year\u003c/a>, Gov. Gavin Newsom earmarked about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976869/heres-whats-inside-newsoms-whopping-15-billion-climate-spending-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$1 billion in new spending\u003c/a> for fire breaks, forest thinning, and other measures to stop megafires before they get out of control. Crowfoot, of the Natural Resources Agency, indicated the state is prepared to expand “upfront, proactive actions,” and the package includes $19 million for the state to work with tribes on prescribed burns, up from just $1 million last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers have also passed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">a\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">bill\u003c/a> that wouldn’t hold prescribed burners liable if a fire escapes it’s containment lines, unless they are grossly negligent. Lastly, a federal Senate infrastructure bill could provide more than \u003ca href=\"https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AG/AG00/20210910/114025/BILLS-117SConRes14pp.pdf\">$16 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AG/AG00/20210910/114025/BILLS-117SConRes14pp.pdf\">billion\u003c/a> over a decade for fuels management.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Megafires push forest communities to the brink\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A trail of cars lined Highway 50 during South Lake Tahoe’s evacuation on Aug. 30, but Bill Schaeffer, wearing a T-shirt, the same moody gray color as the smoke-darkened sky, pushed his bike toward the fire. The scruffy man with long locks hurried to gather his belongings at home in time to catch a bus out of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just two weeks prior, Schaeffer, 68, was unhoused, like he had been on and off for almost two decades. He recently moved into a small, affordable home with the help of a local support group for unhoused people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I lose my place to live, then I’m going to probably be forced back to being homeless again,” he said, noting that rents here, like elsewhere throughout California, have risen to be “sky high.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Known to the outside world as a sparkling tourist area, South Lake Tahoe is home to the resort staff, bartenders and thousands of others who live and work there, keeping the machinery of the place humming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Construction workers Jose Mora and Henry Jose Mendoza fled South Lake Tahoe, too, taking shelter at an evacuation center in Carson City, Nevada. Mendoza only had the clothes on his body because they didn’t have time to pack before leaving. The friends were confused whether or not they needed to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977058\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jose Mora (right) and Henry Jose Mendoza, both construction workers, fled South Lake Tahoe during the Caldor Fire, taking shelter at an evacuation center in Carson City, Nevada. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were looking at Facebook, and then the news,” said Mora. “We were just waiting. Then we received a call and we [saw] the map and we just started getting whatever we could.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the eve of the evacuation, Donarae Reynolds and her husband bustled around their home in the \u003ca href=\"https://goldenbearha.org/current-conditions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Golden Bear neighborhood just outside South Lake Tahoe\u003c/a>, packing medications, clothes and other essentials into their cars and camper trailer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’d removed unrecoverable family photos from the walls, and stowed their passports, living trust and other important documents in a safety deposit box at the bank. Their neighborhood was ready when the evacuation order came in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all simply got in our cars and waved to each other and we took off,” Reynolds said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reynolds’ neighborhood was uniquely prepared for this day to come. In 2019, Reynolds and her neighbors held an \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/news/tahoeland/2019/10/02/climate-change-is-increasing-tahoes-risk-of-wildfire-these-residents-want-to-be-ready/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">evacuation drill to prepare for disasters like the Caldor Fire. \u003c/a>They’ve also held clean-up days and got residents to sign up for emergency alerts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it were a situation where you had no warning and everyone just had to scramble, I think that it would have been a totally different kind of an evacuation,” Reynolds said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neighbors kept up with each other while they were evacuated, trading Ring doorbell camera footage and aerial views of the neighborhood to see if the fire had reached it. The fire spared their homes this time, and they’ve since returned to Golden Bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977060\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe is mostly empty, after evacuees waited hours to leave the area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe is mostly empty on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, after evacuees waited hours to leave the area. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>A matter of survival\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Back in Tahoe with her home and its two decks still standing, Kocher said she feels fortunate to live in South Lake Tahoe with ample fire prevention and suppression assets, especially when nearby communities don’t have the same resources to stop the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m concerned for those communities,” she said. “It’s a matter of survival unless we get our act together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to blame the fires all on a warming climate, but UC Berkeley fire science professor Scott Stephens said the lack of prevention efforts and the overgrown forests amount to the “vast majority” of the state’s current problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hatchett, with the Desert Research Institute, said that still-rising temperatures, increasingly arid conditions, and other impacts of climate change is like “pouring gas” on wildfires and why “we need climate action now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even climate action, he admits, won’t stop the sheer volume of dead brush and trees in forests from burning or prevent the amount of global warming already baked into the atmosphere. But, yet, he has hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to stop that train,” he admitted, “but we might be able to divert it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "About 3,500 firefighters and years of preventative fire preparations largely saved South Lake Tahoe from the Caldor Fire. ",
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"description": "About 3,500 firefighters and years of preventative fire preparations largely saved South Lake Tahoe from the Caldor Fire. ",
"title": "Wildfire Torched the Sierra All Summer, Evading Containment. Here’s How Tahoe Protected Itself | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Susie Kocher watched with increasing dread as the Caldor Fire roared across the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, churning toward her home near the base of Echo Summit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From high along the granite ridge nearby, the view of Lake Tahoe is normally pristine — a cerulean ocean in the sky, dotted with boats and casinos lining the pine forest along the South Shore. But for two weeks at the end of August, smoke as brown as car exhaust clouded the basin’s air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Kocher well knows, having worked tirelessly for more than a decade to prepare this community for a wildfire as a UC Cooperative Extension forestry adviser, under almost every tree near South Lake Tahoe is a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She feared the fast approaching edge of the fire, with its flames licking beyond 100 feet in the air. But she worried most about showers of red hot embers, carried over a mile beyond the fire’s edge by wind gusts, stealing entrance into these homes through open vents or siding gaps, burning them from the inside out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A firefighter is not going to help your home if the ember goes in through the attic,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the fire approached, she cleared away needles and brush from around her house. With their truck, Kocher’s husband, Rick George, hauled their sailboat and other fire hazards to a vacant lot away from their home. She collected her “wedding dress, my husband’s silver and his mother’s wedding dress,” irreplaceable items to take with her when they evacuated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 30, officials ordered South Lake Tahoe to evacuate immediately. She joined thousands of others leaving en masse, her face obscured by a heavy blue and red respirator to protect her lungs from the hazardous smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behind her as she drove away, ash and a hazy amber glow floated around her home.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003ch3>The ‘wake-up moment’\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When the Valley Fire in Lake County destroyed 1,300 homes and killed four people in 2015, the wildfire community called it a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976490/showing-climate-change-as-it-happens-a-veteran-photojournalist-on-capturing-californias-intensifying-wildfires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wake-up moment\u003c/a>” to an era of catastrophic wildfire in California, driven in part by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Caldor, Dixie and other fires this summer make it crystal clear that California’s wildfire crisis is escalating. About 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, a record that could be surpassed by this year’s extreme fire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is in a dangerous place. Scorching summers coupled with tinderbox dry forests render fire containment ineffective — especially when it’s hot, windy or a combination of the two.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Caldor Fire burned into the Tahoe Basin, it looked like this city, a center of gravity for culture in this part of the Sierra, could (and many thought would) burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it did not, thanks to the 3,500 firefighters, a timely shift in the winds and years of fire preparations by a myriad of players.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Caldor Fire showed the danger California faces, but also a path forward, beginning with \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/09/09/interview-pyrogeographer-crystal-kolden-on-fighting-californias-modern-megafires/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acceptance that wildfires are a part of our lives\u003c/a> and not inherently bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976869/heres-whats-inside-newsoms-whopping-15-billion-climate-spending-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">acknowledged\u003c/a> as much when he detailed about $1 billion in new spending for fire breaks, tree thinning and other measures meant to prevent catastrophic wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are not going to respond our way out of this wildfire crisis,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A “confluence of all the right ingredients” coalesced to drive the Caldor Fire’s erratic fire behavior, accelerating the arrival of conditions expected to emerge over the next century, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.dri.edu/directory/benjamin-hatchett/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Benjamin Hatchett,\u003c/a> an atmospheric scientist with the Desert Research Institute in Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope Tahoe is the wake-up call,” he said. “We all need to get together and figure out what we’re going to do so that it’s not Tahoe City next year or Truckee next year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977050\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1977050 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842.jpg\" alt=\"Fire crews manage a back fire while fighting the Caldor Fire. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2842-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fire crews manage a back fire in Sly Park, Calif., fighting the Caldor Fire on Monday, Aug, 23, 2021. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>‘Hat’s off’ for forest thinning\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The Caldor Fire ignited on Aug. 14 near Pollock Pines in El Dorado County, and quickly decimated Grizzly Flats, burning a school, church and the post office, leaving little left in the mountain hamlet. To date, the fire has burned more than 1,000 buildings and north of 220,000 acres. Officials lifted the last of the evacuation orders just \u003ca href=\"https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FA4qSO7VcAEVKRE.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/pyrogeog/status/1435358566139904005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A few days earlier\u003c/a>, the Dixie Fire burned across Kettle Ridge, west of Susanville, and into the Great Basin, becoming the first known wildfire to run across the Sierra Nevada. The flames ripped through high elevation forests usually too saturated with heavy snow melt to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977051\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977051\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208.jpg\" alt=\"A burned entrance sign at Walter Tyler Elementary school with charred playground equipment in the background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/DSCF2208-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walter Tyler Elementary in Grizzly Flats, Calif. Tuesday, August 17, 2021. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any record of that happening before,” Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter said, adding the blaze — 32 times the size of San Francisco — “was exceedingly resistant to control.” The Dixie Fire is California’s largest single fire on record, having consumed nearly 1 million acres across five counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the end of August, the Caldor Fire had burned into the Tahoe Basin, becoming the second recorded fire to cross the Sierra Nevada. Its erratic fire behavior \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/08/19/caldor-fires-explosive-growth-following-dixie-fires-playbook/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mirrored the Dixie Fire\u003c/a> to the north, and residents watched with alarm as the embers ignited spot fires miles in front of the flames, like missiles shot from behind enemy lines, rendering firefighter containment lines — painstakingly hacked with hand tools and bulldozers — essentially useless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For firefighters, this year has been a grueling slog, and the last two weeks of August were some of the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Since we got here, our first time actually sleeping was yesterday,” said Micah Conant, nearly a week into a shift at the Caldor Fire with his Tahoe Douglas Fire Department crew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The firefighters’ main objective: keep the blaze out of South Lake Tahoe, a dense mountain city of more than 21,000 people, and the surrounding communities, home of Kocher and thousands more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a first line of defense, crews with bulldozers scraped earth bare against homes in Meyers and Christmas Valley, where they expected to make a desperate stand, said Phil Heitzke, a fuels specialist with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the wildfire charged towards the fire line, “we were getting 100 or 150 foot flame lengths,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977052\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977052\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51740_IMG_1817-1-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cut stumps in the forest near South Lake Tahoe show where preventative forest thinning took place before the Caldor Fire burned the area. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But suddenly, the flames lowered to the forest floor. Firefighters crossed the dozer lines, safely able to work next to the flames, steering the wildfire away from the homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fire behavior dropped down as soon as it hit this unit,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If crews hadn’t thinned small trees and brush here a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The canopy is open, and that’s the key thing with these fires, having that open canopy so the [wildfire] can’t sustain a crown run” where the fire burns from treetop to treetop, Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the folks who have been working on these projects the last two decades my hat’s off to them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A built-in buffer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Tens of thousands of acres have been treated in the Lake Tahoe Basin in the last 15 years, more than is typical for forested mountain communities. The work is not cheap. Paying crews with chain saws to thin overgrown forests can cost around $2,000 an acre.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1977041\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/KQED_Caldor-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"887\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comparing that against the value of homes saved — recent home sales in the area have garnered a median price of $750,000 — it looks like a good investment. But here, Lake Tahoe is privileged. The city has a much larger population than most mountain towns and boasts a wealthy, largely white conservation community that can afford to pay for expertise needed to get good at winning competitive grants. “There’s a political pressure there,” Heitzke said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents and others have treated more than 40% of the Tahoe Basin since 2008 with mechanical thinning and “good fire,” the intentional burning of thick underbrush to slow down future wildfires. Additionally, hundreds of homeowners around the Tahoe Basin have prepared their houses and properties to withstand wildfire including cleaning needles, trees and debris around homes, and installing new roofs and vent covers to prevent embers from getting inside a house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services6.arcgis.com/1KtlSd2mklZMBKaz/ArcGIS/rest/services/Tahoe_Forest_Fuels_Tx_OFFICIAL_Public_View/FeatureServer&source=sd\">map\u003c/a> of treatments in the area shows an extensive, though patchy, jigsaw puzzle of mechanical thinning and pile burns on both sides of Highway 50. The Forest Service said in the past five years many of those fuel treatments in the Tahoe Basin included prescribed fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“South Lake Tahoe and that whole area has done an absolutely extraordinary job of doing a lot of work to reduce fuels,” said Crystal Kolden, a UC Merced fire scientist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Larsen’s home is about a block away from where the Caldor Fire stopped. He credits the areas of treated forest with saving his and his neighbors homes and said the 2007 Angora Fire, which incinerated 240 homes southwest of South Lake Tahoe, galvanized the community around fire preparations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#9.69/39.0438/-120.1474\" style=\"border: 0px #ffffff none;\" name=\"myiFrame\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" marginheight=\"0px\" marginwidth=\"0px\" height=\"500px\" width=\"100%\" allowfullscreen class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Angora] highlighted the importance of doing something about the overstocked forest and trying to make sure that homeowners are doing the work that they need to do to provide that defensible space,” Larsen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of forest treatments, he said his neighborhood had a “buffer between sort of the very hot fire and fire that was more manageable, I think is a big part of why they were able to succeed and why we are so lucky.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977053\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977053\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51741_IMG_1815-1-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bob Larsen stands in the forest near his home. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Fire here is expected\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For roughly four decades, California wildfires have advanced higher and higher into the backcountry, rising in elevation at a rate of 25 feet per year, with the largest growth in the Sierra Nevada, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://tahoe.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk4286/files/inline-files/Warming_Enabled_e2009717118.full_.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new study\u003c/a> from researchers at UC Merced and elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers say the fire’s spread is driven by warmer and dryer conditions with snow melting earlier in the year. Warming temperatures have driven a fivefold increase in summertime forest fires across California, felt most dramatically in the Sierra Nevada, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1944993/study-climate-change-a-leading-driver-of-californias-wildfires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">research published in 2019, a year before last summer’s record-torching fire season\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://tahoe.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/257/2020/04/Integrated-Vulnerability-Assessment-of-Climate-Change-in-the-Lake-Tahoe-Basin_2020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Tahoe Conservancy’s assessment of the Lake Tahoe Basin’s vulnerability to climate change\u003c/a>, the basin can expect to see higher temperatures, more extreme storms, less snow, more drought stress and larger areas burned by wildfires over the next century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s something that’s happening today,” said South Lake Tahoe Mayor Pro Tem Devin Middlebrook. “[Preparing for big fires] isn’t something that we can put off for 20 or 30 years,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977057\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51299_067_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A CalFire truck drives on a smoke-filled Highway 50 between Pollock Pines and Strawberry, as the Caldor Fire burns nearby. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Culture of suppression\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say a policy of fire prevention has left forest stands across the state thick with overgrown brush and trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the Great Fire of 1910, which burned 20 million acres across the northwest and killed 86 people, California forest managers began actively suppressing wildfires. The majority of the tens of millions of acres of forest in California are controlled by the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1935, that agency passed the 10 a.m. rule, a mandate dictating any fire must be controlled by the next day at 10 a.m. Although this policy was rescinded in 1974, this way of managing forests has led to more than 80 years of suppressing fires by federal firefighters and Cal Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What experts say is often missing from this conversation is the \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/09/16/the-racist-removal-of-native-americans-in-california-is-often-missing-from-wildfire-discussions-experts-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">racist removal of Native American people\u003c/a> from California in the mid-19th century. More than \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/revealing-the-history-of-genocide-against-californias-native-americans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">16,000 were killed\u003c/a>, others were forced onto reservations and many were enslaved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with their physical beings, the knowledge of taking care of the land through forest thinning and cultural burns was also removed. This action resulted in overgrown forests, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.csuchico.edu/geop/department/dhankins.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don Hankins\u003c/a>, a Plains Miwok fire expert at Chico State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California was “still stewarded continuously with Indigenous fire, we would definitely not see the same level of fires that we’re seeing,” he said in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are indications that the state is changing its fire policies. Having spent \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/hub/california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$3.4 billion on wildfire suppression last year\u003c/a>, Gov. Gavin Newsom earmarked about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1976869/heres-whats-inside-newsoms-whopping-15-billion-climate-spending-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$1 billion in new spending\u003c/a> for fire breaks, forest thinning, and other measures to stop megafires before they get out of control. Crowfoot, of the Natural Resources Agency, indicated the state is prepared to expand “upfront, proactive actions,” and the package includes $19 million for the state to work with tribes on prescribed burns, up from just $1 million last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers have also passed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">a\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">bill\u003c/a> that wouldn’t hold prescribed burners liable if a fire escapes it’s containment lines, unless they are grossly negligent. Lastly, a federal Senate infrastructure bill could provide more than \u003ca href=\"https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AG/AG00/20210910/114025/BILLS-117SConRes14pp.pdf\">$16 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AG/AG00/20210910/114025/BILLS-117SConRes14pp.pdf\">billion\u003c/a> over a decade for fuels management.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Megafires push forest communities to the brink\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A trail of cars lined Highway 50 during South Lake Tahoe’s evacuation on Aug. 30, but Bill Schaeffer, wearing a T-shirt, the same moody gray color as the smoke-darkened sky, pushed his bike toward the fire. The scruffy man with long locks hurried to gather his belongings at home in time to catch a bus out of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just two weeks prior, Schaeffer, 68, was unhoused, like he had been on and off for almost two decades. He recently moved into a small, affordable home with the help of a local support group for unhoused people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I lose my place to live, then I’m going to probably be forced back to being homeless again,” he said, noting that rents here, like elsewhere throughout California, have risen to be “sky high.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Known to the outside world as a sparkling tourist area, South Lake Tahoe is home to the resort staff, bartenders and thousands of others who live and work there, keeping the machinery of the place humming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Construction workers Jose Mora and Henry Jose Mendoza fled South Lake Tahoe, too, taking shelter at an evacuation center in Carson City, Nevada. Mendoza only had the clothes on his body because they didn’t have time to pack before leaving. The friends were confused whether or not they needed to evacuate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977058\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977058\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/Image-from-iOS-copy-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jose Mora (right) and Henry Jose Mendoza, both construction workers, fled South Lake Tahoe during the Caldor Fire, taking shelter at an evacuation center in Carson City, Nevada. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were looking at Facebook, and then the news,” said Mora. “We were just waiting. Then we received a call and we [saw] the map and we just started getting whatever we could.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the eve of the evacuation, Donarae Reynolds and her husband bustled around their home in the \u003ca href=\"https://goldenbearha.org/current-conditions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Golden Bear neighborhood just outside South Lake Tahoe\u003c/a>, packing medications, clothes and other essentials into their cars and camper trailer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’d removed unrecoverable family photos from the walls, and stowed their passports, living trust and other important documents in a safety deposit box at the bank. Their neighborhood was ready when the evacuation order came in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all simply got in our cars and waved to each other and we took off,” Reynolds said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reynolds’ neighborhood was uniquely prepared for this day to come. In 2019, Reynolds and her neighbors held an \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/news/tahoeland/2019/10/02/climate-change-is-increasing-tahoes-risk-of-wildfire-these-residents-want-to-be-ready/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">evacuation drill to prepare for disasters like the Caldor Fire. \u003c/a>They’ve also held clean-up days and got residents to sign up for emergency alerts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it were a situation where you had no warning and everyone just had to scramble, I think that it would have been a totally different kind of an evacuation,” Reynolds said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neighbors kept up with each other while they were evacuated, trading Ring doorbell camera footage and aerial views of the neighborhood to see if the fire had reached it. The fire spared their homes this time, and they’ve since returned to Golden Bear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1977060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1977060\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe is mostly empty, after evacuees waited hours to leave the area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/10/RS51290_048_Meyers_CaldorFire_08312021-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe is mostly empty on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, after evacuees waited hours to leave the area. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>A matter of survival\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Back in Tahoe with her home and its two decks still standing, Kocher said she feels fortunate to live in South Lake Tahoe with ample fire prevention and suppression assets, especially when nearby communities don’t have the same resources to stop the flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m concerned for those communities,” she said. “It’s a matter of survival unless we get our act together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to blame the fires all on a warming climate, but UC Berkeley fire science professor Scott Stephens said the lack of prevention efforts and the overgrown forests amount to the “vast majority” of the state’s current problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hatchett, with the Desert Research Institute, said that still-rising temperatures, increasingly arid conditions, and other impacts of climate change is like “pouring gas” on wildfires and why “we need climate action now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even climate action, he admits, won’t stop the sheer volume of dead brush and trees in forests from burning or prevent the amount of global warming already baked into the atmosphere. But, yet, he has hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not going to stop that train,” he admitted, “but we might be able to divert it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Facing Drought, Wildfires, Scorching Heat, Bay Area Wineries Are Changing How They Grow Grapes",
"headTitle": "Facing Drought, Wildfires, Scorching Heat, Bay Area Wineries Are Changing How They Grow Grapes | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen above for a KQED podcast episode of this story created by The Bay team.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a foggy September morning farmworkers harvest plump, dark purple grapes at \u003ca href=\"https://hamelfamilywines.com/\">Hamel Family Wines\u003c/a> in Sonoma County. But winemaker John Hamel II recognizes these Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are very different from others grown in Sonoma and Napa counties. The green vines are flourishing mostly without direct watering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These vines haven’t received a drop of water since 2017,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel stopped watering 80% of his vines after realizing that’s what some growers do in places like France. The method is called dry farming, and uses little to no water to irrigate vineyards. The result is grapes with thicker skins and tastier wine, says Hamel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This season will be slightly lower in yield, but we actually feel like this has potential to be a very good vintage,” he said of this year’s harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is in a second year of drought and for many North Bay grape growers, the hot, dry conditions mean lost crops. In 2020 some growers lost 20% or more of their crops because of dry conditions, fires, or smoke tainting the flavor of their grapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, winemakers and grape growers are changing the direction they grow vines, picking earlier, covering crops with shade cloth, and adapting in other ways. Others have invested in solar panels, electric vehicles, and climate action plans. Some, like Hamel, have shifted to dry farming and are using a lot less water or none at all. At least one Bay Area winery is using “sunscreen” on grape leaves to protect harvests from excessive heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rethinking growing practices is critical, Hamel says, because back-to-back dry years are more frequent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now every year is warm and dry,” he said. “I think it’s good to realize that you’re never fully in control, and being able to adapt to the best of your ability is the job. It’s humbling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976969\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976969\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The only water these grape vines received since 2017 was from fog and rain.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eighty percent of the vines at Hamel Family Wines have not received any irrigation this year. That number has grown from 20% in 2017. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All growers are feeling pressure from drought, fire and heat, but do warming temperatures pose an existential threat to wine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353907512_Global_warming_and_wine_quality_are_we_close_to_the_tipping_point\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> released this summer by \u003ca href=\"https://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/people/kaan-kurtural#/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kaan Kurtural\u003c/a>, a UC Davis viticulture specialist, found that California’s wine industry is “not at a tipping point” because of climate change or its effects — although heat waves and fires can have an immediate impact on winemaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell the growers, their grapevines are not going to die,” he said. “They might not be economical to grow for one or two years, but they always come back. There are very resilient plants. So we’re able to adapt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also found that the climate has warmed steadily in California since the 1980s. But he says this has not been bad for the industry — a warmer climate helped establish the state as a premier wine growing region globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As it became warmer we started harvesting sweeter grapes, and with sweeter grapes, the wine ratings have steadily increased,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5689930505&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the negative impacts of climate change, Kurtural says the state’s $40 billion wine market is strong and growers will adapt to make sure it stays that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are growing grapes at the lowest costs for the grossest profit,” he said. “As long as growers are making money, they will keep them because it’s a business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Dry farming through a drought\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Dry farming in California is not a widely used tactic — it’s just one way some growers like Hamel are acclimating to a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just turning off the water and hoping for the best,” Hamel said. “Even in a year where we received less than half of normal rainfall with a hot summer the vines are doing well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel began dry farming before the current drought, and he’s glad he did. The roots of his vines had years to acclimate, growing deeper and finding underground sources of water. As a result, they are now well-prepared for dry times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first year where we’ve really had a payback,” he said. “The vines have been trained to deal with a drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel says he saved 2 million gallons of water last year and plans to eventually dry farm almost the entirety of his 100 acres in the coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976958 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Hamel Family Wines doesn't use any water on 80% of it's 100 acres.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For John Hamel II, dry farming is about preserving a future for Hamel Family Wines as droughts worsen because of climate change. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[We’re] essentially training the vine to endure more drought each season,” he said. “The drought doesn’t make things easier by any means. We really are on the razor’s edge all season.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drought is not new in California. But Hamel says the pendulum swings between wet and dry years have been more radical in recent years. “We have high rainfall years, close to double the amount of average rain, or we have almost half of the normal rainfall and it’s super difficult to get through an entire season,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" tag=\"climate-change\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another \u003ca href=\"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.712622/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> by Kurtural, the UC Davis viticulture specialist, found growers can use half of the water they normally use without compromising the taste or color of wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But dry farming isn’t a viable option for all wine grape growers, said Connor Bockman with \u003ca href=\"https://rdwinery.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RD Winery\u003c/a>, Napa’s first Vietnamese-owned winery. The growers use drip irrigation to limit water use and utilize a practice called deficit irrigation where vines are only given water when they reach a certain level of stress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says switching from irrigation to dry farming takes time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In comparison to other crops — orchards, annual field crops, and others — high-quality wine grapes use a relatively small amount of water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RD Winery had less fruit on the vine this year. Exactly how much of that is caused by drought is “hard to say,” Bockman said, but their harvest is “40% to 50% under expected yield.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he says, the grapes are of both “great quality and concentration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Impacts of wildfire smoke\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976959 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A fire circled two vineyards at Green and Red Vineyards in Napa County the summer of 2020.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A lightning-sparked fire burned right up to some of the vines at Green and Red Vineyards in 2020. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some winemakers are already feeling the pain that comes with the short-term effects of climate change. Smoke from wildfires, made worse by drought and heat waves, can sully whole harvests with a fumy aroma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, a series of lightning-sparked fire, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/17/lnu-lightning-complex-includes-hennessey-gamble-15-10-spanish-markley-13-4-11-16-walbridge/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LNU Lightning Complex,\u003c/a> consumed 363,000 acres and burned just feet from \u003ca href=\"https://greenandred.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Green and Red Vineyards\u003c/a> in the hills of Napa County. Winery owner Tobin Heminway says most of the 31-acre vineyard acted as a fire break, but the wildfire did burn a few of the vines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were evacuated, and it came up and almost burnt our house down, which is up above on the property, and the fire circled two of our vineyards,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vines survived, but smoke tainted their grapes and they lost all of their reds. This year they picked a few weeks early, after heat waves ripened their grapes sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had these radical growth spurts in the beginning of the season,” she said. “[The grapes] ripened earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says the yield is smaller this year, but the grapes are “good quality” and “intense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976960 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The winemakers tour the vineyard in a jeep showcasing how the fire surrounded the vineyard.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For Green and Red Vineyard operators Tobin Heminway and Raymond Hannigan, the winery is more than grapes and vines. It represents family legacy. Jay Heminway, Tobin’s father, founded the winery and passed away two years ago. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Heminway took over the winery in 2019 after her father, Jay Heminway, passed away. Since then, she’s experienced one climate impact after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an emotionally crazy time to live,” she said. “How do we survive and live in this environment, which is becoming less and less friendly?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heminway has considered foregoing the Zinfandel vines her father planted in the early 1970s for a different varietal. But every time she walks through the vineyard, she thinks about her dad, and removing the vineyard is too closely tied to the legacy he planted and grew. With drought, fires and heat waves continuing to stress her winemaking, she’s aware that climate change is also jeopardizing her family history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all questioning what we are doing here,” she said. “Do we have any control? In farming, we’re dependent on Mother Nature and Mother Nature is pissed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Using grape leaf “sunscreen” for heat waves\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976965\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976965 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-800x300.jpg\" alt=\"A wine grape grower in Napa County uses a clay spray on grape leaves to protect grapes from the hot temperatures. The liquid clay acts like sunscreen for the leaves lowering the temperature.\" width=\"800\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-800x300.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-1020x382.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-160x60.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-768x288.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE.jpg 1366w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winemakers at Green and Red Vineyard in Napa County use a clay spray on grape leaves to protect grapes from hot temperatures. The liquid clay acts like sunscreen for the leaves, lowering the temperature. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wildfires and drought aren’t the only climate effects pressuring vines at Green and Red Vineyards. Scorching heat waves earlier this summer singed the leaves, exposing grapes to the scorching sun. For Aaron Whitlatch, the vineyard’s winemaker, losing another crop wasn’t an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liken it to being a chef that doesn’t get to complete their meal,” he said. “They spent all day chopping things and preparing it, and then you just don’t get to put it out on the plate for people to enjoy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To protect the grapes from turning into raisins on the vine, Whitlatch turned to a human idea: sunscreen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually sunscreen for the leaves, not so much for the grapes themselves,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution, borrowed from wineries in Australia, was already being used at a few other Northern California wineries. He tried it on his Petite Sirah vineyard, which is heavily exposed to sun on a hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He sprayed the leaves with white organic liquid clay, which after it has dried, coats them in a cooling white powder and prevents shriveling or turning, ensuring the grapes are shielded from high heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Whitlatch says heat waves and drought this year will likely cut the total yield in half and he’s aware that future harvests remain in jeopardy as the climate emergency continues to worsen globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Connor Bockman.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California is in a second year of drought and for many North Bay grape growers, the hot, dry conditions mean lost crops.",
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"title": "Facing Drought, Wildfires, Scorching Heat, Bay Area Wineries Are Changing How They Grow Grapes | KQED",
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"headline": "Facing Drought, Wildfires, Scorching Heat, Bay Area Wineries Are Changing How They Grow Grapes",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen above for a KQED podcast episode of this story created by The Bay team.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a foggy September morning farmworkers harvest plump, dark purple grapes at \u003ca href=\"https://hamelfamilywines.com/\">Hamel Family Wines\u003c/a> in Sonoma County. But winemaker John Hamel II recognizes these Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are very different from others grown in Sonoma and Napa counties. The green vines are flourishing mostly without direct watering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These vines haven’t received a drop of water since 2017,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel stopped watering 80% of his vines after realizing that’s what some growers do in places like France. The method is called dry farming, and uses little to no water to irrigate vineyards. The result is grapes with thicker skins and tastier wine, says Hamel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This season will be slightly lower in yield, but we actually feel like this has potential to be a very good vintage,” he said of this year’s harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is in a second year of drought and for many North Bay grape growers, the hot, dry conditions mean lost crops. In 2020 some growers lost 20% or more of their crops because of dry conditions, fires, or smoke tainting the flavor of their grapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, winemakers and grape growers are changing the direction they grow vines, picking earlier, covering crops with shade cloth, and adapting in other ways. Others have invested in solar panels, electric vehicles, and climate action plans. Some, like Hamel, have shifted to dry farming and are using a lot less water or none at all. At least one Bay Area winery is using “sunscreen” on grape leaves to protect harvests from excessive heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rethinking growing practices is critical, Hamel says, because back-to-back dry years are more frequent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now every year is warm and dry,” he said. “I think it’s good to realize that you’re never fully in control, and being able to adapt to the best of your ability is the job. It’s humbling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976969\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976969\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The only water these grape vines received since 2017 was from fog and rain.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHT-WINE-FOG-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eighty percent of the vines at Hamel Family Wines have not received any irrigation this year. That number has grown from 20% in 2017. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All growers are feeling pressure from drought, fire and heat, but do warming temperatures pose an existential threat to wine?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353907512_Global_warming_and_wine_quality_are_we_close_to_the_tipping_point\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> released this summer by \u003ca href=\"https://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/people/kaan-kurtural#/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kaan Kurtural\u003c/a>, a UC Davis viticulture specialist, found that California’s wine industry is “not at a tipping point” because of climate change or its effects — although heat waves and fires can have an immediate impact on winemaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tell the growers, their grapevines are not going to die,” he said. “They might not be economical to grow for one or two years, but they always come back. There are very resilient plants. So we’re able to adapt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also found that the climate has warmed steadily in California since the 1980s. But he says this has not been bad for the industry — a warmer climate helped establish the state as a premier wine growing region globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As it became warmer we started harvesting sweeter grapes, and with sweeter grapes, the wine ratings have steadily increased,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5689930505&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the negative impacts of climate change, Kurtural says the state’s $40 billion wine market is strong and growers will adapt to make sure it stays that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are growing grapes at the lowest costs for the grossest profit,” he said. “As long as growers are making money, they will keep them because it’s a business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Dry farming through a drought\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Dry farming in California is not a widely used tactic — it’s just one way some growers like Hamel are acclimating to a warming world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just turning off the water and hoping for the best,” Hamel said. “Even in a year where we received less than half of normal rainfall with a hot summer the vines are doing well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel began dry farming before the current drought, and he’s glad he did. The roots of his vines had years to acclimate, growing deeper and finding underground sources of water. As a result, they are now well-prepared for dry times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the first year where we’ve really had a payback,” he said. “The vines have been trained to deal with a drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamel says he saved 2 million gallons of water last year and plans to eventually dry farm almost the entirety of his 100 acres in the coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976958\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976958 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Hamel Family Wines doesn't use any water on 80% of it's 100 acres.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For John Hamel II, dry farming is about preserving a future for Hamel Family Wines as droughts worsen because of climate change. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[We’re] essentially training the vine to endure more drought each season,” he said. “The drought doesn’t make things easier by any means. We really are on the razor’s edge all season.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drought is not new in California. But Hamel says the pendulum swings between wet and dry years have been more radical in recent years. “We have high rainfall years, close to double the amount of average rain, or we have almost half of the normal rainfall and it’s super difficult to get through an entire season,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another \u003ca href=\"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.712622/full\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> by Kurtural, the UC Davis viticulture specialist, found growers can use half of the water they normally use without compromising the taste or color of wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But dry farming isn’t a viable option for all wine grape growers, said Connor Bockman with \u003ca href=\"https://rdwinery.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RD Winery\u003c/a>, Napa’s first Vietnamese-owned winery. The growers use drip irrigation to limit water use and utilize a practice called deficit irrigation where vines are only given water when they reach a certain level of stress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says switching from irrigation to dry farming takes time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In comparison to other crops — orchards, annual field crops, and others — high-quality wine grapes use a relatively small amount of water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RD Winery had less fruit on the vine this year. Exactly how much of that is caused by drought is “hard to say,” Bockman said, but their harvest is “40% to 50% under expected yield.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, he says, the grapes are of both “great quality and concentration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Impacts of wildfire smoke\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976959\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976959 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A fire circled two vineyards at Green and Red Vineyards in Napa County the summer of 2020.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-6-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A lightning-sparked fire burned right up to some of the vines at Green and Red Vineyards in 2020. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some winemakers are already feeling the pain that comes with the short-term effects of climate change. Smoke from wildfires, made worse by drought and heat waves, can sully whole harvests with a fumy aroma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, a series of lightning-sparked fire, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2020/8/17/lnu-lightning-complex-includes-hennessey-gamble-15-10-spanish-markley-13-4-11-16-walbridge/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LNU Lightning Complex,\u003c/a> consumed 363,000 acres and burned just feet from \u003ca href=\"https://greenandred.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Green and Red Vineyards\u003c/a> in the hills of Napa County. Winery owner Tobin Heminway says most of the 31-acre vineyard acted as a fire break, but the wildfire did burn a few of the vines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were evacuated, and it came up and almost burnt our house down, which is up above on the property, and the fire circled two of our vineyards,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vines survived, but smoke tainted their grapes and they lost all of their reds. This year they picked a few weeks early, after heat waves ripened their grapes sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had these radical growth spurts in the beginning of the season,” she said. “[The grapes] ripened earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says the yield is smaller this year, but the grapes are “good quality” and “intense.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976960 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The winemakers tour the vineyard in a jeep showcasing how the fire surrounded the vineyard.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/WINE-DROUGHT-ROMERO-8-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For Green and Red Vineyard operators Tobin Heminway and Raymond Hannigan, the winery is more than grapes and vines. It represents family legacy. Jay Heminway, Tobin’s father, founded the winery and passed away two years ago. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Heminway took over the winery in 2019 after her father, Jay Heminway, passed away. Since then, she’s experienced one climate impact after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s an emotionally crazy time to live,” she said. “How do we survive and live in this environment, which is becoming less and less friendly?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heminway has considered foregoing the Zinfandel vines her father planted in the early 1970s for a different varietal. But every time she walks through the vineyard, she thinks about her dad, and removing the vineyard is too closely tied to the legacy he planted and grew. With drought, fires and heat waves continuing to stress her winemaking, she’s aware that climate change is also jeopardizing her family history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re all questioning what we are doing here,” she said. “Do we have any control? In farming, we’re dependent on Mother Nature and Mother Nature is pissed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Using grape leaf “sunscreen” for heat waves\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976965\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976965 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-800x300.jpg\" alt=\"A wine grape grower in Napa County uses a clay spray on grape leaves to protect grapes from the hot temperatures. The liquid clay acts like sunscreen for the leaves lowering the temperature.\" width=\"800\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-800x300.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-1020x382.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-160x60.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE-768x288.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/09/DROUGHTWINESIDE.jpg 1366w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winemakers at Green and Red Vineyard in Napa County use a clay spray on grape leaves to protect grapes from hot temperatures. The liquid clay acts like sunscreen for the leaves, lowering the temperature. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wildfires and drought aren’t the only climate effects pressuring vines at Green and Red Vineyards. Scorching heat waves earlier this summer singed the leaves, exposing grapes to the scorching sun. For Aaron Whitlatch, the vineyard’s winemaker, losing another crop wasn’t an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I liken it to being a chef that doesn’t get to complete their meal,” he said. “They spent all day chopping things and preparing it, and then you just don’t get to put it out on the plate for people to enjoy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To protect the grapes from turning into raisins on the vine, Whitlatch turned to a human idea: sunscreen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually sunscreen for the leaves, not so much for the grapes themselves,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solution, borrowed from wineries in Australia, was already being used at a few other Northern California wineries. He tried it on his Petite Sirah vineyard, which is heavily exposed to sun on a hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He sprayed the leaves with white organic liquid clay, which after it has dried, coats them in a cooling white powder and prevents shriveling or turning, ensuring the grapes are shielded from high heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Whitlatch says heat waves and drought this year will likely cut the total yield in half and he’s aware that future harvests remain in jeopardy as the climate emergency continues to worsen globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Connor Bockman.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Firefighters From Mexico Battle California Fires, One After the Other",
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"content": "\u003cp>When a big wildfire sweeps through a rugged corner of California, fire crews come from all over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the incident command center for the Caldor Fire in South Lake Tahoe, red engines emblazoned with the seals of municipal fire departments across California, as well as green Forest Service engines with license plates from other states, sit side by side.\u003cbr>\nBut some of the firefighters who have come from farthest away are migrant workers from Mexico, hired by private contractors and working these dangerous jobs on temporary work visas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodrigo Rangel Aguilar is working his third year as a wildland firefighter for Franco’s Fire Service outside Salem, Oregon. His crew spent 28 days on the Dixie Fire, got two days off, then headed out to the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s 25 years old, from a small town in Morelia, and the second youngest of seven siblings. Three of his brothers also are working as firefighters in the U.S. Two are heading to the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know exactly which crew, but they’re … arriving soon,” he said in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on where they’re assigned on the sprawling fire, he plans on tracking them down. Otherwise, he’ll see them back in his hometown in Morelia, a ranchito of only 800 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work there is mostly in the fields, growing corn, avocados, sawmills,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entry-level contract firefighters on hand crews typically make about $15-$16 per hour, plus lots of overtime. Hand crews do the hard work of containment, hiking the steep hillsides to cut fire lines with hoses and Pulaski axes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lounging on a tailgate next to Aguilar was Casimiro Calvario Dominguez, who’s working his first season as a firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work in Mexico is harder and pays less,” he said. “I’m not saying we make money sitting around here. We’re working, but it’s more relaxed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calvario Dominguez used a choice Mexican curse word to sum up his dilemma: Leave his family to earn wages paid in dollars so he can provide for them, or stay and work himself into the ground while still earning too little to feed them. Firefighting is tough, he said, but the dollars he makes here support four kids, a wife and his parents.\u003cbr>\nDespite the risks, he’s grateful for the steady work. So far, he’s been able to stay safe, healthy and ready to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the nature of fighting a major wildfire. People converge from all over the continent to engage in perilous labor: contractors, pilots and thousands of workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the crew’s bosses, Manuel Carrillo, is from Porterville, in the Central Valley, and he had to brush up on his Spanish to communicate with the 20 men who work for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My crew is very strong, passionate — very good men, hard workers,” he said. “They’ve taught me a lot, how to work hard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the boss on the ground, his responsibility is to keep his crew members safe. That was hard in Greenville, when the Dixie Fire blasted through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m always looking out for them as they’re working, looking up above for trees, buildings and dangerous things that could explode, like propane tanks,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risks his crew had to take and the losses that the town of Greenville suffered stick with him. Firefighters, no matter what their citizenship, should be paid more for the risks they take to defend homes, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exhausting. You’re dirty, sweaty — grease, oils, smoke. You got to keep your mental coolness, and direct the crew in the right path and make sure we’re all going home to our families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrillo is half Mexican American, half Native American from the Santa Inez band of Chumash Indians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’ve been told is that I’m Mother Earth’s protector. I’m helping calm these fires down, stop them from burning our lands,” he said, adding that his company does forest restoration work in the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We help build these forests all over again, from the ground up until these trees are hundreds of feet tall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He relishes not only the adventure of firefighting, but also his role as protector of the wildlands. While his job is to save homes, those same dwellings are encroaching on the land that he loves, and that his crew members have come to appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having these cities in the heart of these forests. That’s where it hurts, because we see animals, once in a while we’ll run into them, burned alive,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone on his crew is curious to see which will end sooner, their work visas or this ferocious fire season.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When a big wildfire sweeps through a rugged corner of California, fire crews come from all over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the incident command center for the Caldor Fire in South Lake Tahoe, red engines emblazoned with the seals of municipal fire departments across California, as well as green Forest Service engines with license plates from other states, sit side by side.\u003cbr>\nBut some of the firefighters who have come from farthest away are migrant workers from Mexico, hired by private contractors and working these dangerous jobs on temporary work visas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodrigo Rangel Aguilar is working his third year as a wildland firefighter for Franco’s Fire Service outside Salem, Oregon. His crew spent 28 days on the Dixie Fire, got two days off, then headed out to the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s 25 years old, from a small town in Morelia, and the second youngest of seven siblings. Three of his brothers also are working as firefighters in the U.S. Two are heading to the Caldor Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know exactly which crew, but they’re … arriving soon,” he said in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on where they’re assigned on the sprawling fire, he plans on tracking them down. Otherwise, he’ll see them back in his hometown in Morelia, a ranchito of only 800 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work there is mostly in the fields, growing corn, avocados, sawmills,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entry-level contract firefighters on hand crews typically make about $15-$16 per hour, plus lots of overtime. Hand crews do the hard work of containment, hiking the steep hillsides to cut fire lines with hoses and Pulaski axes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lounging on a tailgate next to Aguilar was Casimiro Calvario Dominguez, who’s working his first season as a firefighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work in Mexico is harder and pays less,” he said. “I’m not saying we make money sitting around here. We’re working, but it’s more relaxed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calvario Dominguez used a choice Mexican curse word to sum up his dilemma: Leave his family to earn wages paid in dollars so he can provide for them, or stay and work himself into the ground while still earning too little to feed them. Firefighting is tough, he said, but the dollars he makes here support four kids, a wife and his parents.\u003cbr>\nDespite the risks, he’s grateful for the steady work. So far, he’s been able to stay safe, healthy and ready to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the nature of fighting a major wildfire. People converge from all over the continent to engage in perilous labor: contractors, pilots and thousands of workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the crew’s bosses, Manuel Carrillo, is from Porterville, in the Central Valley, and he had to brush up on his Spanish to communicate with the 20 men who work for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My crew is very strong, passionate — very good men, hard workers,” he said. “They’ve taught me a lot, how to work hard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the boss on the ground, his responsibility is to keep his crew members safe. That was hard in Greenville, when the Dixie Fire blasted through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m always looking out for them as they’re working, looking up above for trees, buildings and dangerous things that could explode, like propane tanks,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The risks his crew had to take and the losses that the town of Greenville suffered stick with him. Firefighters, no matter what their citizenship, should be paid more for the risks they take to defend homes, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s exhausting. You’re dirty, sweaty — grease, oils, smoke. You got to keep your mental coolness, and direct the crew in the right path and make sure we’re all going home to our families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrillo is half Mexican American, half Native American from the Santa Inez band of Chumash Indians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’ve been told is that I’m Mother Earth’s protector. I’m helping calm these fires down, stop them from burning our lands,” he said, adding that his company does forest restoration work in the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We help build these forests all over again, from the ground up until these trees are hundreds of feet tall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He relishes not only the adventure of firefighting, but also his role as protector of the wildlands. While his job is to save homes, those same dwellings are encroaching on the land that he loves, and that his crew members have come to appreciate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having these cities in the heart of these forests. That’s where it hurts, because we see animals, once in a while we’ll run into them, burned alive,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone on his crew is curious to see which will end sooner, their work visas or this ferocious fire season.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "What California Can Learn From The South About Wildfire Prevention",
"headTitle": "What California Can Learn From The South About Wildfire Prevention | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In early May, flames began to spread through a pine forest, consuming a dense carpet of leaves and underbrush. The burn was the definition of a “good fire,” intentionally ignited to clear vegetation that could fuel future infernos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It happened in the state leading the nation in controlled burns: Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Western states contend with increasingly catastrophic wildfires, some are looking to the Southeastern U.S., where prescribed fire is widespread thanks to policies put in place decades ago. From 1998 to 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/2/2/30/htm\">70% of all controlled burning\u003c/a> in the country was in the Southeast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a continent apart, both regions have a similar need for fire. For thousands of years, forests and woodlands experienced regular burning, both sparked by lightning and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\">used by Native American tribes\u003c/a>, which prevented the build up of flammable growth. Without fire, the landscape is prone to intense, potentially devastating wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite that risk, Western states have struggled to expand the use of controlled burns. This month, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026137249/with-extreme-fires-burning-forest-service-stops-good-fires-too\">U.S. Forest Service suspended them\u003c/a> because of the extensive fires burning in record-dry conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, several Western states are moving to adopt the fire policies pioneered by Florida and other Southern states as a hedge against the future. They include training for burn leaders and providing liability protection for them. The bigger challenge is changing the culture around fire, so that residents know that tolerating a little smoke from good fires can help stop the destructive blazes that cloud the air for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have this generational gap in fire knowledge in the Western U.S. that we’re trying to rebuild now,” says Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension. “But Florida and the Southeast still have it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How good fire became routine in the South\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Low-intensity fires were once common across the U.S.. Tribes would burn woodlands to encourage plant growth, improve food and weaving resources, and attract game. In the fast-growing forests of the Southeast, fires would happen every few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After colonization, some settlers in the Southeast adopted similar burning practices on lands taken from tribes. But by the early 1900s, the era of fire suppression began. Burning was seen as a threat to timber harvests. The U.S. Forest Service implemented an edict to extinguish all fires. On billboards and in ads, Smokey Bear spread the idea that fire was the enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the 1960s, land managers realized that many landscapes had become choked with brush, grasses, and small trees. In the Southeast, where the majority of land is privately owned, some residents had continued controlled burning and wanted to see the practice grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re here since the 1800s, my family has been,” says Frank Riley, executive director of the Chestatee-Chattahoochee Resource Conservation and Development Commission, a nonprofit in Demorest, Ga., that works on land management. “They used to light a fire and just let it burn till it quit, wherever over yonder it quit. Because it kept the forest open. The deer had something to eat. The cattle back then had something to eat because it burned all the briars and bushes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1990, Florida passed a law to encourage prescribed burns, recognizing that the state would lose significant biodiversity without it. After firestorms burned almost 500,000 acres in 1998, the law was strengthened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florida set up a certification system for burn managers, also known as “burn bosses,” requiring candidates to get special training on weather and landscape conditions for safe burning. With that certification, burners are protected from liability lawsuits in the rare event a burn gets out of control, unless it’s shown there was “gross negligence” on their part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, 11 Southern states have burn manager certification programs. As a result, controlled burning has become part of the social fabric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city embraces the natural areas that surround it,” says Morgan Varner, director of fire research at \u003ca href=\"https://talltimbers.org/\">Tall Timbers\u003c/a>, a research station and land conservancy in Tallahassee, Fla. “They love the green space and they associate that with the burning that takes place. So there’s a bit of a social license that has to be reborn or restored in the rest of the country that’s really not present.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varner says many private landowners burn every other year, usually in the spring. As long as the weather and wind conditions are safe, burn bosses can get a required permit in 15 minutes over the phone. In Western states, prescribed burn planning can take weeks or even months in some places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t just accept it there — they look for it,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of California, Merced. “They demand it, because they know how important it is for maintaining those landscapes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Western states have a long way to go\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Florida has \u003ca href=\"https://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/intelligence/NationalYTDbyStateandAgency.pdf\">done prescribed burns on more than 1.6 million acres\u003c/a> so far this year. California has only burned around 35,000 acres. The state is 2.5 times larger than Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\">recently signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the U.S. Forest Service to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres of public lands, but the goal is still out of reach. Experts estimate that tens of millions of acres need addressing statewide, but lack of funding, personnel and political will has limited the work on public lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of California is privately owned, and landowners have had little support from public agencies to conduct burns on their property. Permits from firefighting agencies and air quality regulators can be cumbersome to secure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very important that we have private landowners and community groups involved because they are managing and taking care of the lands around our towns and communities,” Quinn-Davidson says. “They’re critical in this larger vision of California living with fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While federal and state firefighters are protected from liability claims for prescribing burning, most burn bosses on private land in California are unable to get insurance to protect themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out and I burn, I have no liability protection,” Quinn-Davidson says. “I’m assuming full responsibility for those projects. And most of the time, we’re doing those projects for public benefit, to reduce wildfire risk, to restore habitat, for cultural reasons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California legislators are \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">currently considering a bill\u003c/a> that would protect burners from being charged for the firefighting resources that would be needed if a burn escapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An earlier version of the bill would have copied laws from Southeastern states, protecting burners from civil liability, too, unless they were grossly negligent. After opposition from the insurance industry, that provision was removed. While rare, some prescribed burns have escaped and burned into developed areas, threatening or even destroying homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other Western states are beginning to move in the same direction. In March, \u003ca href=\"https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/03/18/gov-signs-bipartisan-measure-to-improve-forest-management-help-n-m-avoid-catastrophic-fires/\">New Mexico passed a law\u003c/a> limiting liability for prescribed burning and establishing a burn boss training program. \u003ca href=\"https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Measures/Overview/SB762\">Oregon passed a bill in July\u003c/a> that established its first burn boss certification, as well as a bill that directs agencies to study issues around liability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the federal level, several Democratic senators are hoping to help states with added funding from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/National%20Prescribed%20Fire%20Act%20of%202020%20One%20Pager.pdf\">National Prescribed Fire Act of 2021\u003c/a>, which would provide $300 million for federal agency burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Western states have a long way to go, some experts say the resurgence of burning has already begun, led by communities and Native American tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, Quinn-Davidson helped lead the first burn manager certification course in California. Fourteen local groups, known as \u003ca href=\"https://calpba.org/\">prescribed burn associations\u003c/a>, recently formed to help private landowners with burns across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is, in some ways, in the dark ages with prescribed fire,” Varner says. “But they’re in a time now, a special time, that they can go from No. 49 in the country to No. 1.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Why+The+South+Is+Decades+Ahead+Of+The+West+In+Wildfire+Prevention&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Another destructive fire season has California searching for ways to prevent it. The Southeast just might have the answers: setting controlled fires before the wildfires come.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In early May, flames began to spread through a pine forest, consuming a dense carpet of leaves and underbrush. The burn was the definition of a “good fire,” intentionally ignited to clear vegetation that could fuel future infernos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It happened in the state leading the nation in controlled burns: Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Western states contend with increasingly catastrophic wildfires, some are looking to the Southeastern U.S., where prescribed fire is widespread thanks to policies put in place decades ago. From 1998 to 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/2/2/30/htm\">70% of all controlled burning\u003c/a> in the country was in the Southeast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While a continent apart, both regions have a similar need for fire. For thousands of years, forests and woodlands experienced regular burning, both sparked by lightning and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\">used by Native American tribes\u003c/a>, which prevented the build up of flammable growth. Without fire, the landscape is prone to intense, potentially devastating wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite that risk, Western states have struggled to expand the use of controlled burns. This month, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026137249/with-extreme-fires-burning-forest-service-stops-good-fires-too\">U.S. Forest Service suspended them\u003c/a> because of the extensive fires burning in record-dry conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, several Western states are moving to adopt the fire policies pioneered by Florida and other Southern states as a hedge against the future. They include training for burn leaders and providing liability protection for them. The bigger challenge is changing the culture around fire, so that residents know that tolerating a little smoke from good fires can help stop the destructive blazes that cloud the air for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have this generational gap in fire knowledge in the Western U.S. that we’re trying to rebuild now,” says Lenya Quinn-Davidson, a fire adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension. “But Florida and the Southeast still have it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How good fire became routine in the South\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Low-intensity fires were once common across the U.S.. Tribes would burn woodlands to encourage plant growth, improve food and weaving resources, and attract game. In the fast-growing forests of the Southeast, fires would happen every few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After colonization, some settlers in the Southeast adopted similar burning practices on lands taken from tribes. But by the early 1900s, the era of fire suppression began. Burning was seen as a threat to timber harvests. The U.S. Forest Service implemented an edict to extinguish all fires. On billboards and in ads, Smokey Bear spread the idea that fire was the enemy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the 1960s, land managers realized that many landscapes had become choked with brush, grasses, and small trees. In the Southeast, where the majority of land is privately owned, some residents had continued controlled burning and wanted to see the practice grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re here since the 1800s, my family has been,” says Frank Riley, executive director of the Chestatee-Chattahoochee Resource Conservation and Development Commission, a nonprofit in Demorest, Ga., that works on land management. “They used to light a fire and just let it burn till it quit, wherever over yonder it quit. Because it kept the forest open. The deer had something to eat. The cattle back then had something to eat because it burned all the briars and bushes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1990, Florida passed a law to encourage prescribed burns, recognizing that the state would lose significant biodiversity without it. After firestorms burned almost 500,000 acres in 1998, the law was strengthened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florida set up a certification system for burn managers, also known as “burn bosses,” requiring candidates to get special training on weather and landscape conditions for safe burning. With that certification, burners are protected from liability lawsuits in the rare event a burn gets out of control, unless it’s shown there was “gross negligence” on their part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In total, 11 Southern states have burn manager certification programs. As a result, controlled burning has become part of the social fabric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city embraces the natural areas that surround it,” says Morgan Varner, director of fire research at \u003ca href=\"https://talltimbers.org/\">Tall Timbers\u003c/a>, a research station and land conservancy in Tallahassee, Fla. “They love the green space and they associate that with the burning that takes place. So there’s a bit of a social license that has to be reborn or restored in the rest of the country that’s really not present.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varner says many private landowners burn every other year, usually in the spring. As long as the weather and wind conditions are safe, burn bosses can get a required permit in 15 minutes over the phone. In Western states, prescribed burn planning can take weeks or even months in some places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t just accept it there — they look for it,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of California, Merced. “They demand it, because they know how important it is for maintaining those landscapes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Western states have a long way to go\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Florida has \u003ca href=\"https://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/intelligence/NationalYTDbyStateandAgency.pdf\">done prescribed burns on more than 1.6 million acres\u003c/a> so far this year. California has only burned around 35,000 acres. The state is 2.5 times larger than Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\">recently signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the U.S. Forest Service to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres of public lands, but the goal is still out of reach. Experts estimate that tens of millions of acres need addressing statewide, but lack of funding, personnel and political will has limited the work on public lands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of California is privately owned, and landowners have had little support from public agencies to conduct burns on their property. Permits from firefighting agencies and air quality regulators can be cumbersome to secure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very important that we have private landowners and community groups involved because they are managing and taking care of the lands around our towns and communities,” Quinn-Davidson says. “They’re critical in this larger vision of California living with fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While federal and state firefighters are protected from liability claims for prescribing burning, most burn bosses on private land in California are unable to get insurance to protect themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out and I burn, I have no liability protection,” Quinn-Davidson says. “I’m assuming full responsibility for those projects. And most of the time, we’re doing those projects for public benefit, to reduce wildfire risk, to restore habitat, for cultural reasons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California legislators are \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332\">currently considering a bill\u003c/a> that would protect burners from being charged for the firefighting resources that would be needed if a burn escapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An earlier version of the bill would have copied laws from Southeastern states, protecting burners from civil liability, too, unless they were grossly negligent. After opposition from the insurance industry, that provision was removed. While rare, some prescribed burns have escaped and burned into developed areas, threatening or even destroying homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other Western states are beginning to move in the same direction. In March, \u003ca href=\"https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2021/03/18/gov-signs-bipartisan-measure-to-improve-forest-management-help-n-m-avoid-catastrophic-fires/\">New Mexico passed a law\u003c/a> limiting liability for prescribed burning and establishing a burn boss training program. \u003ca href=\"https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Measures/Overview/SB762\">Oregon passed a bill in July\u003c/a> that established its first burn boss certification, as well as a bill that directs agencies to study issues around liability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the federal level, several Democratic senators are hoping to help states with added funding from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/National%20Prescribed%20Fire%20Act%20of%202020%20One%20Pager.pdf\">National Prescribed Fire Act of 2021\u003c/a>, which would provide $300 million for federal agency burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Western states have a long way to go, some experts say the resurgence of burning has already begun, led by communities and Native American tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, Quinn-Davidson helped lead the first burn manager certification course in California. Fourteen local groups, known as \u003ca href=\"https://calpba.org/\">prescribed burn associations\u003c/a>, recently formed to help private landowners with burns across the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is, in some ways, in the dark ages with prescribed fire,” Varner says. “But they’re in a time now, a special time, that they can go from No. 49 in the country to No. 1.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Why+The+South+Is+Decades+Ahead+Of+The+West+In+Wildfire+Prevention&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Showing Climate Change as it Happens': A Veteran Photojournalist on Capturing California's Intensifying Wildfires",
"headTitle": "‘Showing Climate Change as it Happens’: A Veteran Photojournalist on Capturing California’s Intensifying Wildfires | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Kent Porter’s specialty as a photographer for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat is capturing images of wildfires, but he broke format to write an \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/kent-porter-capturing-climate-change-on-the-front-lines-of-the-dixie-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">essay\u003c/a> about how he sees reporting on fire as documenting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve just passed my 34th year as a photojournalist with The Press Democrat,” he writes. “Every year I think fire season can’t get worse, and it does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter writes about a “wake-up moment” in 2015, when the Valley Fire and two other wildfires torched Lake County, where he grew up. He describes it as “a preview of the new era of catastrophic wildfire in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1023px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976495 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1023\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1.jpeg 1023w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-800x457.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-1020x582.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-160x91.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-768x438.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke from the Dixie Fire hangs in the air as television lights eerily illuminate a burned hotel and restaurant in downtown Greenville. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Porter recalls fire racing through “bug-killed and parched forest atop Cobb Mountain before storming into Middletown, destroying more than 1,300 homes in all and killing four people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ever since then, Porter writes, he has felt a sense of responsibility to show how that “threat is escalating amid the onslaught of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The daily record is important, but I also feel compelled to help chronicle this for history, to show just how dominant a force wildfire has become in our lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Porter spoke with KQED’s Raquel Maria Dillon about what it has been like covering this summer’s Dixie Fire, the largest single fire in California history, and the first recorded blaze to burn clear across the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976498\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-800x606.jpeg\" alt=\"A fire crew uses teamwork to refresh, rest and maintain equipment after cutting miles of fire break in the Rush Creek area of the Feather River Canyon.\" width=\"800\" height=\"606\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-800x606.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-1020x773.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-160x121.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-768x582.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Tehachapi Valley 11 fire crew uses teamwork to refresh, rest and maintain equipment after cutting miles of fire break in the Rush Creek area of the Feather River Canyon, July 25, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What has it been like on the lines of the Dixie Fire?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went up to the Dixie Fire twice, once on my own and once for the newspaper. I realized that it was going to be one of the biggest fires that we’ve covered.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Kent Porter, photojournalist\"]‘The daily record is important, but I also feel compelled to help chronicle this for history, to show just how dominant a force wildfire has become in our lives.’[/pullquote]It was amazing to see the amount of damage that was there. You never really get used to it, even after covering all these fires. One part of the fire blew up and burned 13,000 acres in an afternoon. There was a fire tornado. It’s amazing how dry everything is. The part of the fire that I was on had burned in 2009 and it went through there like it had not burned before, like a virgin forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Describe how you do this, because I don’t think people realize what an individual photographer has to do.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the advent of these climate change-induced fires, I prepare very carefully. I have all the things firefighters need to get on the line except for the firefighting tools. We carry fire shelters. We wear helmets, goggles, and gloves. When you’re in the fire, you’re pretty much there with the firefighters, documenting what they do. And that’s the reason I do it. I want to show people that fighting a fire is not all dropping fire retardant from airplanes and water from helicopters. It’s about the man hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with a fire like the Dixie Fire, you can only manage it. It’s hard to put it out, there’s just no way. The fire does what it wants to do on any given day. All the fires that we’ve experienced within the last six years since the Valley Fire, they just run until they want to stop running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976500\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976500\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-800x504.jpeg\" alt=\"United States Forest Service firefighters from the Los Padres National Forest turn away from wind driven embers and smoke as they protect a structure from the Dixie fire.\" width=\"800\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-800x504.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-1020x643.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-160x101.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-768x484.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6.jpeg 1023w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">United States Forest Service firefighters from the Los Padres National Forest turn away from wind driven embers and smoke as they protect a structure from the Dixie fire as it enters Indian Valley, Monday night, Aug. 9, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mentioned the 2015 Valley Fire in Lake County. What changed then when it comes to wildfire?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I noticed changes around 2012. Almost every wildland fire that I went to was involving structures, which was odd because the first several years that I did this job, I covered grass fires, but they were in unincorporated areas and there were no structures around. I just did it as part of my job, even though it was becoming a little bit more intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"wildfires\"]In September of 2015, the Valley Fire went off. That was my wake up call, seeing the rates of spread and the flame lengths and how fast the fire moved in one afternoon, it just blew me away. I realized, we’re in a different era now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We keep hearing this from veteran firefighters. Fire behavior is off the charts, extreme this year and in recent years. But they often attribute it to forest management practices as opposed to climate change. What do you think?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s both. The forest management could be stronger. Climate change definitely has something to do with it. But with forest management, we’re so far behind right now, it’s going to take a long time to catch up. Climate change has exacerbated the problem. After you burn, you’ve got to go back every couple of years and retreat to that area. It’s a constant cycle to go on forever, really. If we want these fires to become under control, it’s something that we’re going to have to do. We have to face it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When do you really get scared? How do you decide that it’s too dangerous, that the photos aren’t worth it?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A good rule of thumb — if I drive down a road and I see the fire laying over the road and the wind has caught it, I don’t go in there. I will go in after the fire burns all the brush. I’m really careful about where I drive my vehicle. I always make sure I have two exit points. These big fires, they create pyrocumulous columns that go up 40,000 feet, dropping embers behind you, everywhere. Spot fires start in front of you, behind you, on the side. I’m very cautious about that. If the firefighters leave, it’s a good idea for me to leave, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976502\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-800x855.jpeg\" alt=\"Garth Foster, of Grass Valley, rests after cutting hazard trees in the Highway 89 corridor.\" width=\"800\" height=\"855\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-800x855.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-1020x1090.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-160x171.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-768x821.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Garth Foster, who fells trees for the Barry Mickleburgh Tree Company, of Grass Valley, rests after cutting hazard trees in the Highway 89 corridor, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You have quite a following on Twitter, and Santa Rosa newspaper readers, locals, they know you and your work. Why did you write that essay now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our communities in California suffer a great deal of PTSD when the wind blows, when it gets hot. We’re very fire aware in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. I felt like I owed it to the readers of the Press Democrat, to go out there and to kind of show them what it’s like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We photograph and report on things that go on in Sonoma County about our fires, but this is a statewide problem. Whether you agree if there’s climate change or not, fire behavior has changed within the last six years, in our region. It’s worse, much worse, off the charts, worse. We’re showing climate change as it happens, witnessing history. We’re witnessing climate change on a daily basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976499\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976499 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-800x500.jpeg\" alt=\"Woman in shorts, tank top and pink hair sits in front seat of truck cuddling a dog while another dog sits in passenger seat\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-800x500.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-1020x638.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-160x100.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-768x480.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5.jpeg 1023w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With most of her personal possessions packed in the truck bed, Chester resident Regina Rutledge takes comfort in Allie and Sally Sue, Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You talk about a sense of camaraderie and an obligation to the firefighters that you see out in the field that you take pictures of?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They really work hard on the front lines. Imagine being on a fire for 24 hours and breathing the smoke for 24 hours. Think about last year when we had our orange sunrise in the Bay Area. That’s what firefighters live with every single day on a campaign fire. If you’re on a strike team, you’re up there for 15 or 21 days, and you’re breathing that smoke all day long. All night long. When you sleep, when you eat. I want to show people the kind of conditions that firefighters must work in to save communities. I just want to tell these human stories.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Kent Porter documents California wildfires as a photographer with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and says the “threat is escalating amid the onslaught of climate change.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Kent Porter’s specialty as a photographer for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat is capturing images of wildfires, but he broke format to write an \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/kent-porter-capturing-climate-change-on-the-front-lines-of-the-dixie-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">essay\u003c/a> about how he sees reporting on fire as documenting climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve just passed my 34th year as a photojournalist with The Press Democrat,” he writes. “Every year I think fire season can’t get worse, and it does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Porter writes about a “wake-up moment” in 2015, when the Valley Fire and two other wildfires torched Lake County, where he grew up. He describes it as “a preview of the new era of catastrophic wildfire in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1023px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976495 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1023\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1.jpeg 1023w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-800x457.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-1020x582.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-160x91.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-1-768x438.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke from the Dixie Fire hangs in the air as television lights eerily illuminate a burned hotel and restaurant in downtown Greenville. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Porter recalls fire racing through “bug-killed and parched forest atop Cobb Mountain before storming into Middletown, destroying more than 1,300 homes in all and killing four people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ever since then, Porter writes, he has felt a sense of responsibility to show how that “threat is escalating amid the onslaught of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The daily record is important, but I also feel compelled to help chronicle this for history, to show just how dominant a force wildfire has become in our lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Porter spoke with KQED’s Raquel Maria Dillon about what it has been like covering this summer’s Dixie Fire, the largest single fire in California history, and the first recorded blaze to burn clear across the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976498\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-800x606.jpeg\" alt=\"A fire crew uses teamwork to refresh, rest and maintain equipment after cutting miles of fire break in the Rush Creek area of the Feather River Canyon.\" width=\"800\" height=\"606\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-800x606.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-1020x773.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-160x121.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3-768x582.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-3.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Tehachapi Valley 11 fire crew uses teamwork to refresh, rest and maintain equipment after cutting miles of fire break in the Rush Creek area of the Feather River Canyon, July 25, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What has it been like on the lines of the Dixie Fire?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went up to the Dixie Fire twice, once on my own and once for the newspaper. I realized that it was going to be one of the biggest fires that we’ve covered.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It was amazing to see the amount of damage that was there. You never really get used to it, even after covering all these fires. One part of the fire blew up and burned 13,000 acres in an afternoon. There was a fire tornado. It’s amazing how dry everything is. The part of the fire that I was on had burned in 2009 and it went through there like it had not burned before, like a virgin forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Describe how you do this, because I don’t think people realize what an individual photographer has to do.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the advent of these climate change-induced fires, I prepare very carefully. I have all the things firefighters need to get on the line except for the firefighting tools. We carry fire shelters. We wear helmets, goggles, and gloves. When you’re in the fire, you’re pretty much there with the firefighters, documenting what they do. And that’s the reason I do it. I want to show people that fighting a fire is not all dropping fire retardant from airplanes and water from helicopters. It’s about the man hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with a fire like the Dixie Fire, you can only manage it. It’s hard to put it out, there’s just no way. The fire does what it wants to do on any given day. All the fires that we’ve experienced within the last six years since the Valley Fire, they just run until they want to stop running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976500\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976500\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-800x504.jpeg\" alt=\"United States Forest Service firefighters from the Los Padres National Forest turn away from wind driven embers and smoke as they protect a structure from the Dixie fire.\" width=\"800\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-800x504.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-1020x643.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-160x101.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6-768x484.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-6.jpeg 1023w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">United States Forest Service firefighters from the Los Padres National Forest turn away from wind driven embers and smoke as they protect a structure from the Dixie fire as it enters Indian Valley, Monday night, Aug. 9, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You mentioned the 2015 Valley Fire in Lake County. What changed then when it comes to wildfire?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I noticed changes around 2012. Almost every wildland fire that I went to was involving structures, which was odd because the first several years that I did this job, I covered grass fires, but they were in unincorporated areas and there were no structures around. I just did it as part of my job, even though it was becoming a little bit more intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In September of 2015, the Valley Fire went off. That was my wake up call, seeing the rates of spread and the flame lengths and how fast the fire moved in one afternoon, it just blew me away. I realized, we’re in a different era now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>We keep hearing this from veteran firefighters. Fire behavior is off the charts, extreme this year and in recent years. But they often attribute it to forest management practices as opposed to climate change. What do you think?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s both. The forest management could be stronger. Climate change definitely has something to do with it. But with forest management, we’re so far behind right now, it’s going to take a long time to catch up. Climate change has exacerbated the problem. After you burn, you’ve got to go back every couple of years and retreat to that area. It’s a constant cycle to go on forever, really. If we want these fires to become under control, it’s something that we’re going to have to do. We have to face it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When do you really get scared? How do you decide that it’s too dangerous, that the photos aren’t worth it?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A good rule of thumb — if I drive down a road and I see the fire laying over the road and the wind has caught it, I don’t go in there. I will go in after the fire burns all the brush. I’m really careful about where I drive my vehicle. I always make sure I have two exit points. These big fires, they create pyrocumulous columns that go up 40,000 feet, dropping embers behind you, everywhere. Spot fires start in front of you, behind you, on the side. I’m very cautious about that. If the firefighters leave, it’s a good idea for me to leave, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976502\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-800x855.jpeg\" alt=\"Garth Foster, of Grass Valley, rests after cutting hazard trees in the Highway 89 corridor.\" width=\"800\" height=\"855\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-800x855.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-1020x1090.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-160x171.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4-768x821.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-4.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Garth Foster, who fells trees for the Barry Mickleburgh Tree Company, of Grass Valley, rests after cutting hazard trees in the Highway 89 corridor, Sunday, Aug. 8, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You have quite a following on Twitter, and Santa Rosa newspaper readers, locals, they know you and your work. Why did you write that essay now?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our communities in California suffer a great deal of PTSD when the wind blows, when it gets hot. We’re very fire aware in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. I felt like I owed it to the readers of the Press Democrat, to go out there and to kind of show them what it’s like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We photograph and report on things that go on in Sonoma County about our fires, but this is a statewide problem. Whether you agree if there’s climate change or not, fire behavior has changed within the last six years, in our region. It’s worse, much worse, off the charts, worse. We’re showing climate change as it happens, witnessing history. We’re witnessing climate change on a daily basis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976499\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1976499 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-800x500.jpeg\" alt=\"Woman in shorts, tank top and pink hair sits in front seat of truck cuddling a dog while another dog sits in passenger seat\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-800x500.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-1020x638.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-160x100.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5-768x480.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/download-5.jpeg 1023w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With most of her personal possessions packed in the truck bed, Chester resident Regina Rutledge takes comfort in Allie and Sally Sue, Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. \u003ccite>(Kent Porter/Press Democrat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>You talk about a sense of camaraderie and an obligation to the firefighters that you see out in the field that you take pictures of?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They really work hard on the front lines. Imagine being on a fire for 24 hours and breathing the smoke for 24 hours. Think about last year when we had our orange sunrise in the Bay Area. That’s what firefighters live with every single day on a campaign fire. If you’re on a strike team, you’re up there for 15 or 21 days, and you’re breathing that smoke all day long. All night long. When you sleep, when you eat. I want to show people the kind of conditions that firefighters must work in to save communities. I just want to tell these human stories.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "From PurpleAir to AirNow, Your Air Quality Maps for Wildfire Smoke",
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"content": "\u003cp>Bay Area residents have become used to the ritual of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1930023/map-heres-your-daily-air-quality-report-for-the-bay-area\">checking online maps for local air quality\u003c/a> amid burning forests and chaparral near and far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2018 Camp Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">AirNow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, an air quality website maintained by a partnership of states, the federal government, Canada and Mexico, crashed because it could not handle so many people flocking online to put numbers to what their noses were telling them: The air seemed really bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">The failure sent web users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950648/californians-turn-to-low-cost-sensors-for-highly-local-air-quality-info\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">rushing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to alternative, unofficial websites like the interactive, crowdsourced map maintained by \u003ca href=\"https://www.purpleair.com/map?mylocation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">PurpleAir\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, a manufacturer of low-cost air monitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But users have noticed a discrepancy between what official sites are reporting and the readings displayed on PurpleAir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>So, what’s the deal?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Broadly put, PurpleAir provides more localized, more current and less accurate readings than AirNow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA and the U.S. Forest Service have a \u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.768719999999995&lng=-122.4454258&zoom=12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">project\u003c/a> of what some may consider to be the Holy Grail of air quality maps: combined readings taken from PurpleAir’s low-cost sensors and those from official government monitoring devices, all in a single map. Click \u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a> or on the image below to access the map; the circles represent official government monitors, the squares indicate PurpleAir sensors, and the triangles show temporary monitors set up by government agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1969281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1969281 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1020x544.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1020x544.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-800x427.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-160x85.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-768x410.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1536x819.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-2048x1092.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1920x1024.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot from AirNow Fire and Smoke map, a pilot project, on Sept. 4, 2020.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“While these [unofficial] sensors don’t meet the rigorous standards required for regulatory monitors, they can help you get a picture of air quality nearest you, especially when wildfire smoke is in your area,” the website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PurpleAir readings and those from government sensors like the ones maintained by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District differ in several key ways: speed, accuracy and placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[emailsignup newslettername='science' align='right']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Users of PurpleAir can toggle between real-time data and readings averaged over the last 10 or 30 minutes. The data comes from the commercial sensors the company sells, which members of the public install on porches, yards and other neighborhood sites. The readings can be helpful for people deciding whether to go for a walk or engage in other outdoor activity. (Remember to deselect “indoor sensors” to see outdoors-only readings.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The AirNow site displays hourly, not real-time, readings. \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The government sensors that send data to AirNow are very expensive, state-regulated and regularly calibrated by scientists to accurately measure the density of wildfire ash and other particles in the air. But they are more sparsely located than PurpleAir’s network of hundreds of monitors in the region. In contrast, PurpleAir’s devices rely on a laser to count the particles in the air, and use an average density to determine air quality at the monitor’s location. The calculation is an estimate, however, especially during fire season, as woodsmoke particles have a different density from gravel dust or other pollutants.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To try to remedy the situation, we’ve had a whole bunch of different groups, different scientists, different universities, different agencies look at the data and convert it into a calibrated reading that more accurately compares to the EPA’s data,” PurpleAir founder Adrian Dybwad said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">PurpleAir users can now toggle among several conversions — one listed as “US EPA” developed by the U.S. government; “LRAPA,” developed by the Lane Regional Air Pollution Agency in Oregon; “AQandU,” developed by the University of Utah; and another labeled “WOODSMOKE,” developed by researchers in Australia. These readings will align more closely with those from official sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cem>An earlier version of this story was published on Sept. 4, 2020. Jon Brooks contributed.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Bay Area residents have become used to the ritual of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1930023/map-heres-your-daily-air-quality-report-for-the-bay-area\">checking online maps for local air quality\u003c/a> amid burning forests and chaparral near and far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2018 Camp Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">AirNow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, an air quality website maintained by a partnership of states, the federal government, Canada and Mexico, crashed because it could not handle so many people flocking online to put numbers to what their noses were telling them: The air seemed really bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">The failure sent web users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1950648/californians-turn-to-low-cost-sensors-for-highly-local-air-quality-info\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">rushing\u003c/span>\u003c/a> to alternative, unofficial websites like the interactive, crowdsourced map maintained by \u003ca href=\"https://www.purpleair.com/map?mylocation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s4\">PurpleAir\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, a manufacturer of low-cost air monitors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But users have noticed a discrepancy between what official sites are reporting and the readings displayed on PurpleAir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>So, what’s the deal?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Broadly put, PurpleAir provides more localized, more current and less accurate readings than AirNow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA and the U.S. Forest Service have a \u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.768719999999995&lng=-122.4454258&zoom=12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">project\u003c/a> of what some may consider to be the Holy Grail of air quality maps: combined readings taken from PurpleAir’s low-cost sensors and those from official government monitoring devices, all in a single map. Click \u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a> or on the image below to access the map; the circles represent official government monitors, the squares indicate PurpleAir sensors, and the triangles show temporary monitors set up by government agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1969281\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.7576497&lng=-122.4353884&zoom=10\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1969281 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1020x544.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1020x544.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-800x427.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-160x85.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-768x410.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1536x819.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-2048x1092.png 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/09/Air-quality-map-purple-air-airnow-1920x1024.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot from AirNow Fire and Smoke map, a pilot project, on Sept. 4, 2020.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“While these [unofficial] sensors don’t meet the rigorous standards required for regulatory monitors, they can help you get a picture of air quality nearest you, especially when wildfire smoke is in your area,” the website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PurpleAir readings and those from government sensors like the ones maintained by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District differ in several key ways: speed, accuracy and placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Users of PurpleAir can toggle between real-time data and readings averaged over the last 10 or 30 minutes. The data comes from the commercial sensors the company sells, which members of the public install on porches, yards and other neighborhood sites. The readings can be helpful for people deciding whether to go for a walk or engage in other outdoor activity. (Remember to deselect “indoor sensors” to see outdoors-only readings.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The AirNow site displays hourly, not real-time, readings. \u003c/span>\u003cspan class=\"s3\">The government sensors that send data to AirNow are very expensive, state-regulated and regularly calibrated by scientists to accurately measure the density of wildfire ash and other particles in the air. But they are more sparsely located than PurpleAir’s network of hundreds of monitors in the region. In contrast, PurpleAir’s devices rely on a laser to count the particles in the air, and use an average density to determine air quality at the monitor’s location. The calculation is an estimate, however, especially during fire season, as woodsmoke particles have a different density from gravel dust or other pollutants.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To try to remedy the situation, we’ve had a whole bunch of different groups, different scientists, different universities, different agencies look at the data and convert it into a calibrated reading that more accurately compares to the EPA’s data,” PurpleAir founder Adrian Dybwad said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">PurpleAir users can now toggle among several conversions — one listed as “US EPA” developed by the U.S. government; “LRAPA,” developed by the Lane Regional Air Pollution Agency in Oregon; “AQandU,” developed by the University of Utah; and another labeled “WOODSMOKE,” developed by researchers in Australia. These readings will align more closely with those from official sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p6\">\u003cem>An earlier version of this story was published on Sept. 4, 2020. Jon Brooks contributed.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Forests Are at a Turning Point. Why Aren't We Committing to 'Good Fire'?",
"headTitle": "California’s Forests Are at a Turning Point. Why Aren’t We Committing to ‘Good Fire’? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Year after year, California wildfires shock us with their relentlessness. The 2017 North Bay fires stunned us with their speed and death toll. Then the 2018 Camp Fire became the most destructive on record in the state, nearly wiping out the entire town of Paradise and claiming 85 lives. Last year’s unusual lightning storms led to what officials called a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/hsviuuv3/cal-fire-2020-fire-siege.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fire siege\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as I see \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-06/dixie-fire-destroys-much-of-greenville-california-threatens-other-towns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">towns\u003c/a> ravaged, \u003ca href=\"https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-wildfires/2021/07/13/new-details-arizona-plane-crash-killing-2-arizona-wildfire-officials/7942189002/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lives\u003c/a> lost and the second largest fire on record in California \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026078606/dixie-fire-california-only-21-percent-contained?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continue to expand,\u003c/a> I keep asking myself: When will preventing catastrophic fires feel as urgent as fighting them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians have formed a grim routine. Readying “go bags,” shutting windows to guard against fire smoke, and increasingly, evacuating neighborhoods to escape encroaching flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeing the aftermath of the Camp Fire and other big fires — block after block of torched buildings, recovery teams looking for the remains of fire victims — have left me hoping I never have to report on the incineration of another town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That feeling inspired a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/dventon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">series\u003c/a> I did this spring examining systemic solutions to the state’s fire problem, and the realization that while wildfire is a natural part of California’s landscape, these megafires do not have to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the thing: we know what to do to help. We need to return the land to an older state — the state it was in when native peoples were its stewards. They used fire to their advantage, instead of quickly extinguishing every possible fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Karuk people have always lived on the Klamath River, and they used fire to manage resources,” Kathy McCovey, a Karuk tribal member and former longtime Forest Service employee, told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can’t learn to live with fire and learn how to work with what it is and what it does to help maintain all the things needed for survival in a place like this, then basically you’re working against it, and if enough time goes by, it will work against you,” Bill Tripp, director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.karuk.us/index.php/departments/natural-resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Natural Resources\u003c/a> for the Karuk, \u003ca href=\"https://bioneers.org/good-fire-indigenous-cultural-burns-renew-life-zmbz2108/?fbclid=IwAR2qO6SsqbmKxsQMqgOEO71KABEUPod-HJOCeUUIFw6TXeeIycHtqEmhzA4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> in a recent interview. “Things in nature have a tendency to win.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Putting ‘Good Fire’ to Work\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a-yosemite-watershed/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">research published this week \u003c/a>from fire scientists at UC Berkeley underscores the truth that “good fire” in a forest protects against “bad fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors examined half a century of data from areas of Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National parks, where — starting back in the Nixon administration — most naturally sparked fires have been allowed to burn. The authors found that in these basins fires are “self-limiting,” — burning themselves out before they get too big — meanwhile, the streams have more water in them and plant life is more diverse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers characterize this as a “triple win,” not the sort of language you typically find in research about wildfire and warming temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we are in a terrifying age of climate change, which is lengthening the fire season and drying plants to the point where they are primed to burn. But the researchers point out that in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin, fires have not increased in size and severity, thanks to the allowance of natural fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So there are some places in California where we can look at and say, ‘Wow, it does work,’” says senior author Scott Stephens. But, he says, these fires have been allowed to burn in these areas since the ’70s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, in 2020, the rest of California’s forests have had an extra half century to transform, becoming even more overgrown, with loads of extra wood to burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/A52JGCm12Bg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Changes at the Forest Service\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer the Forest Service, which oversees 20 million acres of California’s forested lands, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026137249/with-extreme-fires-burning-forest-service-stops-good-fires-too\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ditched\u003c/a> this approach of “managed fire” — allowing fires to burn that don’t seem to pose a threat to people and infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After pressure from politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, the agency’s new chief, Randy Moore, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://forestpolicypub.com/2021/08/05/the-chiefs-wildland-fire-direction-letter/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aug. 2 letter to staff \u003c/a>that they will not use managed fire to improve forest health and will make any prescribed burnings subject to additional approval until further notice. This would normally be decided, not at the national level, but district by district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partially this is a staffing issue. The Forest Service is overstretched this season. As of July, 800 fire jobs the agency describes dryly as “forest technicians” \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/14/forest-services-california-region-had-not-filled-800-of-4620-planned-fire-positions-in-early-july/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">went unfilled in California.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When all available people are fighting fires, no one can attend to prescribed fires that are so vital for preventing future conflagrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reality is we are resource limited,” wrote Moore in his Aug. 2 letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">reporting\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">from\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">San\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">Francisco\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">Chronicle\u003c/a>, the agency already was not using managed fire to improve forest health this season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Tamarack Fire, which ignited on July 4 in a remote region south of Lake Tahoe, thrust this obscure policy into the spotlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Forest Service originally chose \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2955306648085725\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">not to send firefighters \u003c/a>because of safety concerns. But days later winds changed, and the fire exploded and moved toward the town of Markleeville, destroying homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Seeing Beyond this Season\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 10, more than 40 fire and forest scientists \u003ca href=\"http://www.hurteaulab.org/uploads/3/8/7/3/38731639/chief_moore_letter_10aug2021.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sent a letter to Moore,\u003c/a> expressing dismay over the blanket announcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/pyrogeog/status/1425124175631421441?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter reads in part: “Given the challenges associated with increasing the pace and scale of restoration thinning and prescribed burning, managing natural ignitions is one of the only ways to accomplish the needed work, especially on steeper ground and in remote areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dismay is widespread within both the fire science and \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a2G-HMStRfZDB9OlTlPtllH5fhuslZc9/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fire management \u003c/a>community, with many viewing the decision as grossly shortsighted, prompted by political interference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, representing California’s 4th Congressional District, recently described firefighters as “\u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/25/in-case-you-missed-the-congressman-calling-firefighters-unskilled-labor\">unskilled\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/25/in-case-you-missed-the-congressman-calling-firefighters-unskilled-labor\">labor\u003c/a>,” and said in remarks on the House floor that the Forest Service doesn’t know what it’s doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/RepMcClintock/status/1421164572480839686\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many places around the country where managed wildfire and prescribed fire could be beneficial right now, and every year that we keep fire out of those fire-adapted landscapes, the problem worsens,” wrote fire scientist Lenya Quinn-Davidson in an email to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if managed fire is removed as an available tool in some parts of California, she says, that shouldn’t limit opportunities elsewhere, such as in areas of the Southwest where monsoon rains could make low-intensity fires safe and effective right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These general statements by national and state leaders show how little they understand the complexity of the problem, and the nuanced approaches that are going to be essential for moving forward with fire,” Quinn-Davidson, the author of the recent essay titled “\u003ca href=\"https://fireadaptednetwork.org/renewing-and-radicalizing-our-relationship-with-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Renewing — and Radicalizing — Our Relationship with Fire,”\u003c/a> wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problems we have now are a culmination of 100 years of bad decision-making, and span all jurisdictions and agencies — public and private. [Firefighters] have the hardest, most dangerous and underpaid jobs, and they are grappling with problems that we all have created. We need to have their backs.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Year after year, California wildfires shock us with their relentlessness. The 2017 North Bay fires stunned us with their speed and death toll. Then the 2018 Camp Fire became the most destructive on record in the state, nearly wiping out the entire town of Paradise and claiming 85 lives. Last year’s unusual lightning storms led to what officials called a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/hsviuuv3/cal-fire-2020-fire-siege.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fire siege\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as I see \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-06/dixie-fire-destroys-much-of-greenville-california-threatens-other-towns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">towns\u003c/a> ravaged, \u003ca href=\"https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-wildfires/2021/07/13/new-details-arizona-plane-crash-killing-2-arizona-wildfire-officials/7942189002/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lives\u003c/a> lost and the second largest fire on record in California \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026078606/dixie-fire-california-only-21-percent-contained?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continue to expand,\u003c/a> I keep asking myself: When will preventing catastrophic fires feel as urgent as fighting them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians have formed a grim routine. Readying “go bags,” shutting windows to guard against fire smoke, and increasingly, evacuating neighborhoods to escape encroaching flames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seeing the aftermath of the Camp Fire and other big fires — block after block of torched buildings, recovery teams looking for the remains of fire victims — have left me hoping I never have to report on the incineration of another town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That feeling inspired a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/dventon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">series\u003c/a> I did this spring examining systemic solutions to the state’s fire problem, and the realization that while wildfire is a natural part of California’s landscape, these megafires do not have to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s the thing: we know what to do to help. We need to return the land to an older state — the state it was in when native peoples were its stewards. They used fire to their advantage, instead of quickly extinguishing every possible fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Karuk people have always lived on the Klamath River, and they used fire to manage resources,” Kathy McCovey, a Karuk tribal member and former longtime Forest Service employee, told me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can’t learn to live with fire and learn how to work with what it is and what it does to help maintain all the things needed for survival in a place like this, then basically you’re working against it, and if enough time goes by, it will work against you,” Bill Tripp, director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.karuk.us/index.php/departments/natural-resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Natural Resources\u003c/a> for the Karuk, \u003ca href=\"https://bioneers.org/good-fire-indigenous-cultural-burns-renew-life-zmbz2108/?fbclid=IwAR2qO6SsqbmKxsQMqgOEO71KABEUPod-HJOCeUUIFw6TXeeIycHtqEmhzA4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> in a recent interview. “Things in nature have a tendency to win.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Putting ‘Good Fire’ to Work\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/09/how-wildfire-restored-a-yosemite-watershed/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">research published this week \u003c/a>from fire scientists at UC Berkeley underscores the truth that “good fire” in a forest protects against “bad fire.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authors examined half a century of data from areas of Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National parks, where — starting back in the Nixon administration — most naturally sparked fires have been allowed to burn. The authors found that in these basins fires are “self-limiting,” — burning themselves out before they get too big — meanwhile, the streams have more water in them and plant life is more diverse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers characterize this as a “triple win,” not the sort of language you typically find in research about wildfire and warming temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, we are in a terrifying age of climate change, which is lengthening the fire season and drying plants to the point where they are primed to burn. But the researchers point out that in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin, fires have not increased in size and severity, thanks to the allowance of natural fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So there are some places in California where we can look at and say, ‘Wow, it does work,’” says senior author Scott Stephens. But, he says, these fires have been allowed to burn in these areas since the ’70s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, in 2020, the rest of California’s forests have had an extra half century to transform, becoming even more overgrown, with loads of extra wood to burn.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/A52JGCm12Bg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/A52JGCm12Bg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Changes at the Forest Service\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer the Forest Service, which oversees 20 million acres of California’s forested lands, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1026137249/with-extreme-fires-burning-forest-service-stops-good-fires-too\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ditched\u003c/a> this approach of “managed fire” — allowing fires to burn that don’t seem to pose a threat to people and infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After pressure from politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, the agency’s new chief, Randy Moore, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://forestpolicypub.com/2021/08/05/the-chiefs-wildland-fire-direction-letter/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aug. 2 letter to staff \u003c/a>that they will not use managed fire to improve forest health and will make any prescribed burnings subject to additional approval until further notice. This would normally be decided, not at the national level, but district by district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partially this is a staffing issue. The Forest Service is overstretched this season. As of July, 800 fire jobs the agency describes dryly as “forest technicians” \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/14/forest-services-california-region-had-not-filled-800-of-4620-planned-fire-positions-in-early-july/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">went unfilled in California.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When all available people are fighting fires, no one can attend to prescribed fires that are so vital for preventing future conflagrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reality is we are resource limited,” wrote Moore in his Aug. 2 letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">reporting\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">from\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">San\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">Francisco\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Let-it-burn-Forest-Service-s-new-all-out-fire-16372130.php\">Chronicle\u003c/a>, the agency already was not using managed fire to improve forest health this season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Tamarack Fire, which ignited on July 4 in a remote region south of Lake Tahoe, thrust this obscure policy into the spotlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Forest Service originally chose \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2955306648085725\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">not to send firefighters \u003c/a>because of safety concerns. But days later winds changed, and the fire exploded and moved toward the town of Markleeville, destroying homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Seeing Beyond this Season\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Aug. 10, more than 40 fire and forest scientists \u003ca href=\"http://www.hurteaulab.org/uploads/3/8/7/3/38731639/chief_moore_letter_10aug2021.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sent a letter to Moore,\u003c/a> expressing dismay over the blanket announcement.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The letter reads in part: “Given the challenges associated with increasing the pace and scale of restoration thinning and prescribed burning, managing natural ignitions is one of the only ways to accomplish the needed work, especially on steeper ground and in remote areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dismay is widespread within both the fire science and \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a2G-HMStRfZDB9OlTlPtllH5fhuslZc9/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fire management \u003c/a>community, with many viewing the decision as grossly shortsighted, prompted by political interference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, representing California’s 4th Congressional District, recently described firefighters as “\u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/25/in-case-you-missed-the-congressman-calling-firefighters-unskilled-labor\">unskilled\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/07/25/in-case-you-missed-the-congressman-calling-firefighters-unskilled-labor\">labor\u003c/a>,” and said in remarks on the House floor that the Forest Service doesn’t know what it’s doing.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“There are many places around the country where managed wildfire and prescribed fire could be beneficial right now, and every year that we keep fire out of those fire-adapted landscapes, the problem worsens,” wrote fire scientist Lenya Quinn-Davidson in an email to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if managed fire is removed as an available tool in some parts of California, she says, that shouldn’t limit opportunities elsewhere, such as in areas of the Southwest where monsoon rains could make low-intensity fires safe and effective right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These general statements by national and state leaders show how little they understand the complexity of the problem, and the nuanced approaches that are going to be essential for moving forward with fire,” Quinn-Davidson, the author of the recent essay titled “\u003ca href=\"https://fireadaptednetwork.org/renewing-and-radicalizing-our-relationship-with-fire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Renewing — and Radicalizing — Our Relationship with Fire,”\u003c/a> wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "As California Megafires Burn, Forest Service Ditches 'Good Fire' Under Political Pressure",
"headTitle": "As California Megafires Burn, Forest Service Ditches ‘Good Fire’ Under Political Pressure | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Facing record-breaking dry conditions across the West, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will aggressively put out wildfires this summer. As a result, the agency’s use of “good fire,” the lower-intensity blazes that clear out overgrown forests, will also stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighting personnel battling extreme blazes, federal officials say no one can be spared for fire prevention work. But some fire scientists worry that the blanket rule takes away the most important tools foresters have to reduce future wildfire risk, even in parts of the country where it may be safe to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a tough decision, I think, because politically, there’s a lot of pressure to put every single fire out,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the UC Merced. “The problem is that political pressure is not based on good science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many extreme fires across the West are being fueled by overgrown forests, where dense vegetation has accumulated over a century of fire suppression. In recent years, the Forest Service has worked to reduce that risk by using fire proactively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is now suspending the use of prescribed burns, where foresters set carefully controlled fires that remove brush and vegetation, but don’t kill the mature trees. It’s also suspending what’s known as “managed wildfires for resource benefit,” where naturally caused fires are cautiously allowed to burn if they’re in remote areas and don’t pose a risk to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in a ‘triage mode’ where our primary focus must be on fires that threaten communities and infrastructure,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote in a letter announcing the change. “When western fire activity abates, we will resume using all the tools in our toolbox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Grows to Attack Wildfires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has faced growing pressure since the Tamarack Fire exploded south of Lake Tahoe, Calif., in July, destroying at least 14 homes. Sparked by lightning in high mountain wilderness, the Forest Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/HumboldtToiyabeNF/videos/the-tamarackfire-burning-in-the-mokelumne-wilderness-was-ignited-july-4-from-lig/2955306648085725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">didn’t send fire crews due to safety concerns\u003c/a> over the remoteness of the location. After burning for more than a week, winds drove the fire into the town of Markleeville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Tamarack Fire was not considered a managed burn to benefit the ecosystem, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a policy shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need your help to change the culture in terms of the suppression strategies, in this climate, literally and figuratively, to be more aggressive on these federal fires,” Newsom told President Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration responded quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to have more boots on the ground,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/08/04/governor-newsom-u-s-agriculture-secretary-vilsack-and-forest-service-chief-moore-discuss-state-federal-efforts-to-build-wildfire-resilience/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told Newsom last week\u003c/a>. “And I pledge to you and commit to you that will happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kicking the Can Down the Road\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the suspension is raising flags for some forest ecologists who say, with millions of acres of forest overloaded with vegetation, the agency can’t afford to fall farther behind on reducing fire risk in the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re going to stop managed wildfire now, then we’re kicking the can down the road for those fuels to burn and they may burn in even hotter and drier conditions,” Kolden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While summertime burns aren’t used in all Western forests, banning beneficial fires could limit the number of acres the Forest Service treats by reducing vegetation this year, leaving overgrowth that may be the fuel for dangerous fires down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer in California can be a useful time for the Forest Service to do prescribed burns and other vegetation treatments. In June through September 2019, the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.cnra.ca.gov/datasets/CALFIRE-Forestry::prescribed-burns-1/explore?location=37.570937%2C-119.381350%2C8.93\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agency completed burns on almost 13,000 acres\u003c/a>, according to public data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer is also when many naturally caused wildfires begin, sparked by lightning in wilderness areas. In 2009, the Forest Service adopted a policy to allow more of these fires to spread, especially where the terrain is too remote for prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Southwest, the Forest Service managed fires like this on more than 270,000 acres in 2020 to benefit the ecosystem. In that part of the country, managed wildfires have become a significant strategy, because summer monsoon rains reduce the risk those fires could get out of hand. But the policy is controversial, because in rare cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1134217/let-it-burn-the-forest-service-wants-to-stop-putting-out-some-fires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">managed wildfires have escaped\u003c/a>, threatening homes and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Western U.S. Still Has a Fire Deficit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where federal agencies have completed their work, this approach of controlling and managing has helped prevent wildfires from reaching extremes. With less vegetation on the ground in those areas, the fires don’t reach high intensity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/629915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as was seen in parts of the 2013 Rim Fire\u003c/a> around Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I’ve been out on a large wildfire, the only thing that has moderated fire spread has been past fire footprints on the landscape,” says Mike Beasley, a retired fire manager who worked for the National Park Service and Forest Service for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the record-breaking wildfires of recent years, the Western U.S. still has a fire deficit. Millions of acres once burned every year, either in fires caused by lightning or set by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Native American tribes who used fire\u003c/a> to shape the landscape. Over millennia, forest ecosystems were accustomed to these low-grade fires, but that changed when the era of fire suppression began. For much of the last century, the Forest Service actively stopped all fires, adopting the “10 a.m. rule,” where fires had to be extinguished by 10 a.m. the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That policy helped set the stage for the extreme wildfires today, which have burned hotter and more intensely than many forests are adapted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The amount of fuel that’s built up over that time period is bigger than anything these forests have experienced in recent millennia,” says Keala Hagmann, research ecologist at the University of Washington. “We do have tools at our disposal to change the ways these fires are burning and the window of opportunity is closing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 20 million acres of forested land in California, nearly 20% of the state, needs some form of fuel reduction. California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the Forest Service last year to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres a year collectively, but the goal is still far off. In 2019, projects only took place on 100,000 acres statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Climate Boosts Fire Risk and Chances to Reduce It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighters occupied on wildfires in extremely dry conditions, some say the shift in policy is a necessary trade-off this summer to protect communities and prevent more homes from burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Governor Newsom supports the science of ‘good fires,'” a spokesperson for Newsom responded by email. “But there are no ‘good fires’ in atrocious conditions, and that’s what the western states are experiencing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, hotter droughts are becoming increasingly common in the Western U.S.. Just as is happening this year, dry conditions could continue to limit the use of beneficial fire when burning is deemed too risky. Firefighters, exhausted from months of battling extreme blazes, are less available to assist with prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge here is that it’s easy to say: with climate change, we shouldn’t do this anymore,” Kolden says. “But that is a fire suppression mentality and that’s what got us in this situation in the first place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say Western states will need to embrace “good fire” at a much more dramatic scale to stave off the record-breaking fires seen in recent years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941685/this-california-neighborhood-was-built-to-survive-a-wildfire-and-it-worked\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Communities need to create defensible space\u003c/a>, reducing the flammable vegetation around them, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embracing wildfire building codes\u003c/a> and retrofitting existing homes with fire-resistant materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid for the future,” says Beasley. “It’s going to be such a political hot button topic. They’re going to take the path of least risk and that’s just going to be to suppress. And that’s not going to be successful in all cases and we better be prepared for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=With+Extreme+Fires+Burning%2C+Forest+Service+Stops+%27Good+Fires%27+Too&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Facing record-breaking dry conditions across the West, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will aggressively put out wildfires this summer. As a result, the agency’s use of “good fire,” the lower-intensity blazes that clear out overgrown forests, will also stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighting personnel battling extreme blazes, federal officials say no one can be spared for fire prevention work. But some fire scientists worry that the blanket rule takes away the most important tools foresters have to reduce future wildfire risk, even in parts of the country where it may be safe to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a tough decision, I think, because politically, there’s a lot of pressure to put every single fire out,” says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the UC Merced. “The problem is that political pressure is not based on good science.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many extreme fires across the West are being fueled by overgrown forests, where dense vegetation has accumulated over a century of fire suppression. In recent years, the Forest Service has worked to reduce that risk by using fire proactively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is now suspending the use of prescribed burns, where foresters set carefully controlled fires that remove brush and vegetation, but don’t kill the mature trees. It’s also suspending what’s known as “managed wildfires for resource benefit,” where naturally caused fires are cautiously allowed to burn if they’re in remote areas and don’t pose a risk to people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are in a ‘triage mode’ where our primary focus must be on fires that threaten communities and infrastructure,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote in a letter announcing the change. “When western fire activity abates, we will resume using all the tools in our toolbox.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Political Pressure Grows to Attack Wildfires\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency has faced growing pressure since the Tamarack Fire exploded south of Lake Tahoe, Calif., in July, destroying at least 14 homes. Sparked by lightning in high mountain wilderness, the Forest Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/HumboldtToiyabeNF/videos/the-tamarackfire-burning-in-the-mokelumne-wilderness-was-ignited-july-4-from-lig/2955306648085725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">didn’t send fire crews due to safety concerns\u003c/a> over the remoteness of the location. After burning for more than a week, winds drove the fire into the town of Markleeville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Tamarack Fire was not considered a managed burn to benefit the ecosystem, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a policy shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need your help to change the culture in terms of the suppression strategies, in this climate, literally and figuratively, to be more aggressive on these federal fires,” Newsom told President Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration responded quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to have more boots on the ground,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/08/04/governor-newsom-u-s-agriculture-secretary-vilsack-and-forest-service-chief-moore-discuss-state-federal-efforts-to-build-wildfire-resilience/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told Newsom last week\u003c/a>. “And I pledge to you and commit to you that will happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kicking the Can Down the Road\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the suspension is raising flags for some forest ecologists who say, with millions of acres of forest overloaded with vegetation, the agency can’t afford to fall farther behind on reducing fire risk in the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we’re going to stop managed wildfire now, then we’re kicking the can down the road for those fuels to burn and they may burn in even hotter and drier conditions,” Kolden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While summertime burns aren’t used in all Western forests, banning beneficial fires could limit the number of acres the Forest Service treats by reducing vegetation this year, leaving overgrowth that may be the fuel for dangerous fires down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer in California can be a useful time for the Forest Service to do prescribed burns and other vegetation treatments. In June through September 2019, the \u003ca href=\"https://gis.data.cnra.ca.gov/datasets/CALFIRE-Forestry::prescribed-burns-1/explore?location=37.570937%2C-119.381350%2C8.93\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agency completed burns on almost 13,000 acres\u003c/a>, according to public data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer is also when many naturally caused wildfires begin, sparked by lightning in wilderness areas. In 2009, the Forest Service adopted a policy to allow more of these fires to spread, especially where the terrain is too remote for prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Southwest, the Forest Service managed fires like this on more than 270,000 acres in 2020 to benefit the ecosystem. In that part of the country, managed wildfires have become a significant strategy, because summer monsoon rains reduce the risk those fires could get out of hand. But the policy is controversial, because in rare cases, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1134217/let-it-burn-the-forest-service-wants-to-stop-putting-out-some-fires\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">managed wildfires have escaped\u003c/a>, threatening homes and people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Western U.S. Still Has a Fire Deficit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where federal agencies have completed their work, this approach of controlling and managing has helped prevent wildfires from reaching extremes. With less vegetation on the ground in those areas, the fires don’t reach high intensity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/629915\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as was seen in parts of the 2013 Rim Fire\u003c/a> around Yosemite National Park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time I’ve been out on a large wildfire, the only thing that has moderated fire spread has been past fire footprints on the landscape,” says Mike Beasley, a retired fire manager who worked for the National Park Service and Forest Service for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the record-breaking wildfires of recent years, the Western U.S. still has a fire deficit. Millions of acres once burned every year, either in fires caused by lightning or set by \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/08/24/899422710/to-manage-wildfire-california-looks-to-what-tribes-have-known-all-along\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Native American tribes who used fire\u003c/a> to shape the landscape. Over millennia, forest ecosystems were accustomed to these low-grade fires, but that changed when the era of fire suppression began. For much of the last century, the Forest Service actively stopped all fires, adopting the “10 a.m. rule,” where fires had to be extinguished by 10 a.m. the next day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That policy helped set the stage for the extreme wildfires today, which have burned hotter and more intensely than many forests are adapted to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The amount of fuel that’s built up over that time period is bigger than anything these forests have experienced in recent millennia,” says Keala Hagmann, research ecologist at the University of Washington. “We do have tools at our disposal to change the ways these fires are burning and the window of opportunity is closing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An estimated 20 million acres of forested land in California, nearly 20% of the state, needs some form of fuel reduction. California \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/08/13/california-u-s-forest-service-establish-shared-long-term-strategy-to-manage-forests-and-rangelands/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed an agreement\u003c/a> with the Forest Service last year to reduce vegetation on 1 million acres a year collectively, but the goal is still far off. In 2019, projects only took place on 100,000 acres statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Climate Boosts Fire Risk and Chances to Reduce It\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With thousands of firefighters occupied on wildfires in extremely dry conditions, some say the shift in policy is a necessary trade-off this summer to protect communities and prevent more homes from burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Governor Newsom supports the science of ‘good fires,'” a spokesperson for Newsom responded by email. “But there are no ‘good fires’ in atrocious conditions, and that’s what the western states are experiencing right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the climate warms, hotter droughts are becoming increasingly common in the Western U.S.. Just as is happening this year, dry conditions could continue to limit the use of beneficial fire when burning is deemed too risky. Firefighters, exhausted from months of battling extreme blazes, are less available to assist with prescribed burns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenge here is that it’s easy to say: with climate change, we shouldn’t do this anymore,” Kolden says. “But that is a fire suppression mentality and that’s what got us in this situation in the first place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire experts say Western states will need to embrace “good fire” at a much more dramatic scale to stave off the record-breaking fires seen in recent years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1941685/this-california-neighborhood-was-built-to-survive-a-wildfire-and-it-worked\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Communities need to create defensible space\u003c/a>, reducing the flammable vegetation around them, as well as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/936685629/rebuilding-after-a-wildfire-most-states-dont-require-fire-resistant-materials\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embracing wildfire building codes\u003c/a> and retrofitting existing homes with fire-resistant materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid for the future,” says Beasley. “It’s going to be such a political hot button topic. They’re going to take the path of least risk and that’s just going to be to suppress. And that’s not going to be successful in all cases and we better be prepared for that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=With+Extreme+Fires+Burning%2C+Forest+Service+Stops+%27Good+Fires%27+Too&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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"info": "",
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