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"content": "\u003cp>As a popular Tahoe ski resort digs out from a tragedy that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972303/one-dead-following-avalanche-at-palisades-tahoe\">killed a skier\u003c/a> and buried several others, scientists said predicting how the warming planet will affect avalanches in California is elusive at best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just after lifts opened on Wednesday, an avalanche tore through the Palisades Tahoe ski resort, creating a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?id=100064556774669&story_fbid=790665709761981\">10-foot-deep debris field\u003c/a> that stretched 450 feet long and 150 feet wide. A second avalanche struck in neighboring Alpine Meadows this afternoon, although no one was injured. The U.S. Forest Service and ski resorts take steps to forecast and \u003ca href=\"https://dot.alaska.gov/stwdmno/documents/History_Military_Weapons_Avalanche.pdf\">prevent dangerous slides (PDF)\u003c/a>, and avalanche \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents/us\">fatalities at ski resorts\u003c/a> remain rare: Before this week, the last one in California was four years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11972210,news_11972320 label='More on the Avalanche in Palisades']But what can California’s skiers and snowboarders expect as Sierra Nevada snow patterns become unpredictable due to climate change? Experts say understanding the effects on avalanches is tricky: Climate change is not just a matter of warming temperatures but also \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-2/\">altered patterns in storms and snow cover\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An array of factors such as wind, rain, previous snowpack and temperatures can all enter into the equation of what causes a mass of snow to slide down a mountain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are humans working in a natural world. And so everybody does the best they can,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.inscc.utah.edu/~steenburgh/home/\">Jim Steenburgh\u003c/a>, a University of Utah professor of atmospheric sciences and author of the book \u003cem>Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The circumstances that lead to avalanches are multifaceted, Steenburgh said: a weak layer in the snowpack, a steep slope and a trigger — usually people on the slope. The frequency of human-triggered avalanches in the future will largely depend on how many skiers and snowboarders recreate in risky backcountry areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That also means untangling the effects of climate change is especially difficult, or “elusive,” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.639433/full\">one team of scientists said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers are making a few predictions. Lower-elevation areas that see less snow in a warmer future \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107306118\">may see fewer avalanches\u003c/a>, but higher elevations could see more intense storms and the potential effects on avalanches there are uncertain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/3/2022/03/04_SROCC_Ch02_FINAL.pdf\">reported (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2019 that there was medium evidence for less avalanche hazards at lower elevations and mixed changes at higher elevations. Though the report predicted an increase in avalanches involving wet snow, they found “no clear direction of trend for overall avalanche activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avalanches involving wet snow could increase — as could conditions where scarce snow and cold, clear weather combine to cause persistent weak layers in the snowpack, creating “a major threat to recreationists,” a team of researchers from Switzerland, Italy and the U.S. wrote in a 2021 review paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trauma and injuries could rise as snowpacks dwindle, with less snow to cushion blows from the terrain. And wetter avalanches could also increase buried victims’ risk of suffocation in the higher-density snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a higher risk of disastrous events where poorly managed winter tourism activities, transportation routes, and exploitation of natural resources lead to increases in exposure,” the international study said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=science_1939719 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/03/iStock-161822125.jpg']Mixed findings also were reported on other mountain ranges around the planet. Climate warming was \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1716913115\">linked to an increase in wet snow avalanches\u003c/a> in the Western Himalayas — which the researchers said “contradict the intuitive notion that warming results in less snow, and thus lower avalanche activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three years later, another team \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107306118\">found\u003c/a> that the number and magnitude of avalanches dropped substantially at low-to-medium elevations of the Vosges Mountains in northeast France as snow became scarce. They predicted that the increases observed in the Alps and Himalayas “will eventually vanish as warming will become more pronounced to reduce snow cover at increasingly higher elevations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Reitzell, president of Ski California, a trade association of 36 ski areas in California and Nevada, said ski resorts in avalanche-prone terrain already have programs to reduce the dangers – regardless of the impacts of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The slope angles aren’t going to change with climate change,” Reitzell said. “The type of snowpack that there is, whether it’s a wet snow versus a drier snow, those are things they would already be analyzing anyway.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Dangerous avalanche conditions’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ski resorts have long used explosives and artillery to trigger avalanches and remove the mass of snow before it can produce avalanches that are dangerous to visitors. “This greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the avalanche threat,” Steenburgh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the deadly event on Wednesday, the Sierra Avalanche Center \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/forecasts/#/central-sierra-nevada\">forecasted\u003c/a> a “considerable” risk of avalanches in the Central Sierra Nevada backcountry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dangerous avalanche conditions will continue today. New snow and high winds have \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/snowpack-observations/signs-of-instability-red-flags/heavy-snowfall-or-rain/loading-loading-rate/\">loaded\u003c/a> existing weak \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/snow-layer/\">layers\u003c/a> in our snowpack. Large avalanches are the main concern today, failing well below our recent storm snow. High winds will also continue to create \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/slab/\">slabs\u003c/a> of wind-blown snow in exposed areas,” the center reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1991099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/01/12/experts-unsure-if-california-avalanches-will-worsen-with-climate-changes/011024-palisades-avalanche-ap-cm-03/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1991099\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1991099\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03.jpg\" alt=\"Two people ski past the bottom of a lift in snowy conditions\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People snowshoe next to a ski lift at Palisades Tahoe on Jan. 10, 2024.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Palisades Tahoe said the cause of the avalanche was \u003ca href=\"https://blog.palisadestahoe.com/operations/incident-update/\">under investigation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resort had already seen a smattering of storms in the months before. Then the wind picked up on Monday night, and light snow started Wednesday morning before the avalanche occurred, according to Chris Johnston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nevada. The storm dropped about 14 inches of snow on \u003ca href=\"https://www.palisadestahoe.com/mountain-information/snow-and-weather\">the resort’s upper mountain area over 24 hours\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The avalanche occurred just minutes after the resort opened on a steep, black diamond run made famous during \u003ca href=\"https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/squaw-valley-1960\">the 1960 Olympics’ alpine skiing events\u003c/a> at the resort, then called Squaw Valley. It was the first day the famed KT-22 lift had opened for the season. While Palisades \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972320/palisades-tahoe-ski-resort-reopens-in-wake-of-deadly-avalanche\">reopened\u003c/a> on Thursday, KT-22 and nine other lifts \u003ca href=\"https://www.palisadestahoe.com/mountain-information/lift-and-grooming-status\">remained closed\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sjsu.edu/people/craig.clements/\">Craig Clements\u003c/a>, a San Jose State University chair and professor of meteorology who teaches a mountain meteorology class that covers avalanche mechanics, said conditions were primed for an avalanche because high winds transported snow to form a thick slab atop weak layers of snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have a weak shear zone there, and so basically, all that new snow can slide … you just need to trigger it,” Clements said. “And then it will slide downslope — and that is dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As a popular Tahoe ski resort digs out from a tragedy that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972303/one-dead-following-avalanche-at-palisades-tahoe\">killed a skier\u003c/a> and buried several others, scientists said predicting how the warming planet will affect avalanches in California is elusive at best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just after lifts opened on Wednesday, an avalanche tore through the Palisades Tahoe ski resort, creating a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?id=100064556774669&story_fbid=790665709761981\">10-foot-deep debris field\u003c/a> that stretched 450 feet long and 150 feet wide. A second avalanche struck in neighboring Alpine Meadows this afternoon, although no one was injured. The U.S. Forest Service and ski resorts take steps to forecast and \u003ca href=\"https://dot.alaska.gov/stwdmno/documents/History_Military_Weapons_Avalanche.pdf\">prevent dangerous slides (PDF)\u003c/a>, and avalanche \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.state.co.us/accidents/us\">fatalities at ski resorts\u003c/a> remain rare: Before this week, the last one in California was four years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But what can California’s skiers and snowboarders expect as Sierra Nevada snow patterns become unpredictable due to climate change? Experts say understanding the effects on avalanches is tricky: Climate change is not just a matter of warming temperatures but also \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/chapter-2/\">altered patterns in storms and snow cover\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An array of factors such as wind, rain, previous snowpack and temperatures can all enter into the equation of what causes a mass of snow to slide down a mountain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are humans working in a natural world. And so everybody does the best they can,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.inscc.utah.edu/~steenburgh/home/\">Jim Steenburgh\u003c/a>, a University of Utah professor of atmospheric sciences and author of the book \u003cem>Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The circumstances that lead to avalanches are multifaceted, Steenburgh said: a weak layer in the snowpack, a steep slope and a trigger — usually people on the slope. The frequency of human-triggered avalanches in the future will largely depend on how many skiers and snowboarders recreate in risky backcountry areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That also means untangling the effects of climate change is especially difficult, or “elusive,” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2021.639433/full\">one team of scientists said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, researchers are making a few predictions. Lower-elevation areas that see less snow in a warmer future \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107306118\">may see fewer avalanches\u003c/a>, but higher elevations could see more intense storms and the potential effects on avalanches there are uncertain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/3/2022/03/04_SROCC_Ch02_FINAL.pdf\">reported (PDF)\u003c/a> in 2019 that there was medium evidence for less avalanche hazards at lower elevations and mixed changes at higher elevations. Though the report predicted an increase in avalanches involving wet snow, they found “no clear direction of trend for overall avalanche activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avalanches involving wet snow could increase — as could conditions where scarce snow and cold, clear weather combine to cause persistent weak layers in the snowpack, creating “a major threat to recreationists,” a team of researchers from Switzerland, Italy and the U.S. wrote in a 2021 review paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trauma and injuries could rise as snowpacks dwindle, with less snow to cushion blows from the terrain. And wetter avalanches could also increase buried victims’ risk of suffocation in the higher-density snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a higher risk of disastrous events where poorly managed winter tourism activities, transportation routes, and exploitation of natural resources lead to increases in exposure,” the international study said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mixed findings also were reported on other mountain ranges around the planet. Climate warming was \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1716913115\">linked to an increase in wet snow avalanches\u003c/a> in the Western Himalayas — which the researchers said “contradict the intuitive notion that warming results in less snow, and thus lower avalanche activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three years later, another team \u003ca href=\"https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107306118\">found\u003c/a> that the number and magnitude of avalanches dropped substantially at low-to-medium elevations of the Vosges Mountains in northeast France as snow became scarce. They predicted that the increases observed in the Alps and Himalayas “will eventually vanish as warming will become more pronounced to reduce snow cover at increasingly higher elevations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mike Reitzell, president of Ski California, a trade association of 36 ski areas in California and Nevada, said ski resorts in avalanche-prone terrain already have programs to reduce the dangers – regardless of the impacts of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The slope angles aren’t going to change with climate change,” Reitzell said. “The type of snowpack that there is, whether it’s a wet snow versus a drier snow, those are things they would already be analyzing anyway.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Dangerous avalanche conditions’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ski resorts have long used explosives and artillery to trigger avalanches and remove the mass of snow before it can produce avalanches that are dangerous to visitors. “This greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, the avalanche threat,” Steenburgh said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the deadly event on Wednesday, the Sierra Avalanche Center \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/forecasts/#/central-sierra-nevada\">forecasted\u003c/a> a “considerable” risk of avalanches in the Central Sierra Nevada backcountry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dangerous avalanche conditions will continue today. New snow and high winds have \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/snowpack-observations/signs-of-instability-red-flags/heavy-snowfall-or-rain/loading-loading-rate/\">loaded\u003c/a> existing weak \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/snow-layer/\">layers\u003c/a> in our snowpack. Large avalanches are the main concern today, failing well below our recent storm snow. High winds will also continue to create \u003ca href=\"https://avalanche.org/avalanche-encyclopedia/snowpack/slab/\">slabs\u003c/a> of wind-blown snow in exposed areas,” the center reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1991099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/01/12/experts-unsure-if-california-avalanches-will-worsen-with-climate-changes/011024-palisades-avalanche-ap-cm-03/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1991099\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1991099\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03.jpg\" alt=\"Two people ski past the bottom of a lift in snowy conditions\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/01/011024-Palisades-Avalanche-AP-CM-03-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">People snowshoe next to a ski lift at Palisades Tahoe on Jan. 10, 2024.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Palisades Tahoe said the cause of the avalanche was \u003ca href=\"https://blog.palisadestahoe.com/operations/incident-update/\">under investigation\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resort had already seen a smattering of storms in the months before. Then the wind picked up on Monday night, and light snow started Wednesday morning before the avalanche occurred, according to Chris Johnston, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nevada. The storm dropped about 14 inches of snow on \u003ca href=\"https://www.palisadestahoe.com/mountain-information/snow-and-weather\">the resort’s upper mountain area over 24 hours\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The avalanche occurred just minutes after the resort opened on a steep, black diamond run made famous during \u003ca href=\"https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/squaw-valley-1960\">the 1960 Olympics’ alpine skiing events\u003c/a> at the resort, then called Squaw Valley. It was the first day the famed KT-22 lift had opened for the season. While Palisades \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11972320/palisades-tahoe-ski-resort-reopens-in-wake-of-deadly-avalanche\">reopened\u003c/a> on Thursday, KT-22 and nine other lifts \u003ca href=\"https://www.palisadestahoe.com/mountain-information/lift-and-grooming-status\">remained closed\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sjsu.edu/people/craig.clements/\">Craig Clements\u003c/a>, a San Jose State University chair and professor of meteorology who teaches a mountain meteorology class that covers avalanche mechanics, said conditions were primed for an avalanche because high winds transported snow to form a thick slab atop weak layers of snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have a weak shear zone there, and so basically, all that new snow can slide … you just need to trigger it,” Clements said. “And then it will slide downslope — and that is dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "draft-living-in-californias-sierra-foothills-residents-confront-climate-change",
"title": "Facing the Fire: California's Sierra Foothills Residents Race to Adapt",
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"headTitle": "Facing the Fire: California’s Sierra Foothills Residents Race to Adapt | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]S[/dropcap]hari Wilson woke up and stared at the sun, dull and orange against a ruddy sky. She checked the Air Quality Index app on her phone and put on a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt just kind of down,” she said. “You know, there’s that orange sky, gray day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of people across the Midwest and Northeast this past June, she saw smoke from Canadian wildfires. Though the fires were thousands of miles away, she couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt trapped in the smoke,” she said. “And it made me think a lot about my friends in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shari Wilson and her husband had moved back to their home state of Michigan less than a year prior. Before that, they had spent nearly four decades in California, more than half of it in Nevada City, a small town on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, about an hour’s drive from Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985405\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985405 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dark clouds roll into Nevada City, Nevada County, on Aug. 15, 2023.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The quintessential Gold Rush-era town, complete with a vibrant arts scene and quaint, historic downtown, is surrounded by pine forests. Shari Wilson’s husband, Mark Wilson, said when they first moved there, those trees were a big part of the draw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a great evergreen tree that grew two feet away from our deck,” he said. “We thought, ‘This is so great, we can watch the birds.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than two decades, the idea that a wildfire could level their house seemed distant. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/a-walk-in-the-ashes-of-the-tubbs-fire-five-years-later-in-sonoma-county/\">2017 Tubbs Fire\u003c/a> in California’s wine country brought it home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire tore through a suburban neighborhood, killing 22 people. A year later, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-20/five-years-after-the-camp-fire-paradise-survivors-see-hard-future-for-maui\">the Camp Fire\u003c/a> decimated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That made it real,” Mark Wilson said. “And it became a real feeling that this could easily happen to us tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985421\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985421\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sign in the form of a cross sits next to the side of a road in dusk light.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A memorial reads, ‘Faith, Hope, Paradise,’ in Paradise on Aug. 9, 2023. The Camp Fire, a deadly fire that destroyed much of the towns of Paradise and Concow, swept through the area in 2018. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The couple started thinking about where else to live. Shari Wilson was quick to say it wasn’t just due to the fires. “We aren’t climate refugees,” she said. They both grew up in Michigan and wanted to live close to family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when this summer’s smoke began to blot out the sun, Mark Wilson said it was a grim reminder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It made me sad because it was a reminder that it’s not just California. It’s not just in one place. It’s everywhere,” he said. “And no matter where you go, climate change is going to catch up with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985407\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985407 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A red sign with white lettering is nailed to a tree.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign advertising defensible space clearance for wildfire preparation hangs on a tree along the San Juan Ridge near Nevada City on June 27, 2023. The area is heavily forested and borders the Yuba River near historic towns that date back to the 1849 California Gold Rush. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As rising global temperatures bake the surrounding pine trees, oaks and madrones of the Sierra Nevada mountains, residents living in its scattered communities have a choice: to remain in the fire’s path or hedge their bets elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a question my family found ourselves facing, but in reverse, after my partner inherited a house in Nevada County. It is a place where we both spent our childhoods and where we hoped to one day raise our daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire has always been part of the bargain of living there. But as climate change fuels wildfires of unprecedented proportions, it’s rewriting the terms of that old agreement. As it does, that’s forced us, like many in the forested foothills, to renegotiate what we’re willing to do — and how much we’re willing to risk — to live there.\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=KQINC1360589321&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Nevada County, measures to mitigate the threat of wildfires are underway, but their effectiveness has been stunted by decades of land management policies that sought to suppress all fires and led to an overabundance of brush and trees. Now, residents are racing to make up for lost time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For communities across the globe similarly poised on the knife’s edge of catastrophe — whether the threat is rising seas, stronger hurricanes or longer periods of extreme heat — the question is how to preserve and protect these places, or as retired fire scientist and Nevada County resident Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman put it, “What does it mean to live in different environments? What does it mean to grow up in an area? What does it mean to be human?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Barbara’s house\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My partner’s mom, Barbara, was 79 when she passed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She left behind a two-bedroom Mediterranean-style home with an orange exterior, its hue varied and weathered, one wall splashed robin’s egg blue. Situated on a 13-acre property in the northwestern corner of Nevada County, the house is not only a mausoleum of her artifacts but a physical manifestation of her memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbara had suffered a stroke, and we spent 10 days in the hospital hoping for an improvement in her condition that never came. During that time, and in the weeks after she passed away, the house was a vessel for our grief. It held us because it held so much of her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985313\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985313 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB.jpg\" alt=\"A one level house with a tile roof is surrounded by trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-1536x1018.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barbara built her home with wildfires in mind. The walls are made from a concrete-like material a foot thick that’s rated to withstand 12 hours of burning. S-shaped tiles line the roof, and a gravel driveway encircles the home. Photographed in August 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When we finally turned off the lights and locked the doors to return home to the Bay Area, we did so reluctantly, wondering how and when we might move our lives there. Beneath our decision was an emerging hope for our not-yet-one-year-old daughter — that, although she would never know her grandmother, she might know the house her grandmother built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That summer, smoke from two dozen wildfires loomed over Nevada County and drifted across the state. On one particularly bad day in the Bay Area, it grew so thick \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/the-day-the-san-francisco-sky-turned-orange\">daylight turned to dusk\u003c/a>. It was then when I first began to wonder what kind of future our daughter might inherit if we chose to move to Nevada County, and what it would be like to live in a place where my own memories were constantly clashing with new realities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Nothing left to burn\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>They call her the voice of doom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From her home office overlooking the Yuba River in Nevada County, Pascale Fusshoeller translates the precise, militaristic jargon of wildland firefighting departments into English, conveying need-to-know information on a fire’s origins, its speed and direction to readers across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985197\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985197\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The charred remains of burnt trees stand out from newly grown plants in a field.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jim Mathias, Wildfire Prevention and Safety Manager of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, drives through an area of the county burned by wildfire on June 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fusshoeller co-founded and edits YubaNet.com, which began in 1999 as the Internet burgeoned from niche to mainstream. She and her wife, Susan Levitz, both career journalists, intended to run a community events page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That changed, Fusshoeller said, the day the site went live, and she spotted a towering plume of smoke rising from the ridge facing their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s how we got into fire information,” she said. She hasn’t looked back. “It helps people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985203\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985203\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing hard hats work digging in a forest.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crew members from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they performed a ‘mop up’ following a prescribed burn in Nevada County on June 21, 2023. Using hand tools, the crew members will ensure that all of the fire has been extinguished. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Fusshoeller, this means that whenever a fire occurs in the Sierra Nevada mountains, her days start early and end late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/there-s-no-more-typical-wildfire-season-california-it-may-n934521\">It used to be\u003c/a> that fire season began in August and wrapped up by the end of September. Now, she says if there is a “fire season” at all, it begins in May and ends in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And of course, some years, there’s large fires in December,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As global temperatures rise, so, too, does the number of wildfires. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, across the western United States, human-caused climate change has doubled the cumulative area burned by wildfires over natural levels since 1984.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985422\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2006px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985422\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2006\" height=\"728\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1.png 2006w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-800x290.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1020x370.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-160x58.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-768x279.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1536x557.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1920x697.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2006px) 100vw, 2006px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure FAQ2.3.1 | (a) Springs Fire, May 2, 2013, Thousand Oaks, California, USA (photo by Michael Robinson Chávez, Los Angeles Times). (b) Cumulative area burned by wildfire in the western USA, with (orange) and without (yellow) the increased heat and aridity of climate change. \u003ccite>(IPCC Sixth Assessment Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Patrick Gonzalez, a forest ecologist and climate change scientist at UC Berkeley, said the problem is particularly acute in California, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1-200-years/#:~:text=An%20exceptionally%20dry%20year%20in%202021%20helped%20break%20the%20record,least%20a%20couple%20of%20decades.\">a prolonged drought in recent years\u003c/a> has dried out plants and soils.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In Northern and Central California, almost all of the increase in burned area [over natural levels] has come from human-caused climate change since 1996,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/featured-items/top20_destruction.pdf?rev=ee6ea855632a4b56a46adea1d3c8022f&hash=5B8B3A1A35CBB52CB0ED7A010F0B52E0\">18 of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires (PDF)\u003c/a> have occurred since 2003. Nevada County had been spared. Looking at a map, Fusshoeller noted that all the surrounding counties had experienced large and destructive wildfires during that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s not to say that one day we will not have a large catastrophic fire here,” she said. Nevada County shares the same mix of vegetation, topography and climate conditions. “There is nothing else left to burn in the foothills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The forerunner\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is something very Californian about believing it’s possible to survive anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joan Didion knew this. In her 1968 collection of essays, \u003cem>Slouching Toward Bethlehem\u003c/em>, Didion wrote of the desert metropolis’ clime, “Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same could be said of the entire state. Where early white settlers found a floodplain, they built their capital city, Sacramento. And even amid the rubble of the city’s most destructive earthquake, San Franciscans nonetheless rebuilt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985404\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985404\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02.jpg\" alt=\"Left: Dark smoke billows above a structure. Right: Light gray and reddish smoke rises above a home surrounded by trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-800x385.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-1020x490.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-160x77.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-768x369.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-1536x738.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A column of smoke rises behind a house in Lake Wildwood, California, as Mark and Kathy Baldassari prepare to evacuate from the 49er Fire on Sept. 11, 1988. Right: Smoke from the 49er Fire rises behind homes in Lake Wildwood, a small community in Nevada County, on Sept. 11, 1988. The fire burned through nearly 36,000 acres and destroyed almost 150 homes, making it California’s third most destructive wildfire at the time. Now, it’s not even in the top 20. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark and Kathy Baldassari)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My own earliest memory, if an infant can be said to have one, is of a thick column of gray and black smoke rising behind my family’s house the day we evacuated from a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theunion.com/opinion/49er-fire-memories-where-were-you-30-years-ago-today/article_960384f0-6667-5f66-a6f9-fb0508006a76.html\">It was Sept. 11, 1988\u003c/a>. I was just over a year old. My dad would later describe the fire’s path: not a continuous wall, but jagged, like fingers on a hand, touching some homes, refusing others — sparing ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And you kind of wonder why,” he mused, “why did it spare that house and burn that one?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was called the 49er Fire because it broke out near Highway 49 in Nevada County. It tore through nearly 36,000 acres of forest and grasslands and destroyed almost 150 homes. At the time, it was the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/49er-fire-destruction/\">third-largest wildfire\u003c/a> and is still the county’s most destructive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985219\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985219\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Several houses beside fire-scorched terrain.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1543\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-800x617.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1020x787.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-768x593.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1536x1185.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1920x1481.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 1988 49er Fire burned through nearly 36,000 acres in Nevada County and destroyed almost 150 homes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark and Kathy Baldassari)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a prediction that feels prescient today, Jerry Partain, then-director of California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, now called Cal Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/624226617/?clipping_id=115881062&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjYyNDIyNjYxNywiaWF0IjoxNjk4OTU1MDA4LCJleHAiOjE2OTkwNDE0MDh9.s5IFZHnqPAFNjR2pbvWX3mHL3voE5oItjgwOsPg0Srk\">told \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, “This [fire] is the classic. This is what we’ve been preaching about for the past several years. This is just the forerunner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Partain had been preaching about — fireproofing homes and managing the surrounding vegetation — is now a familiar sermon to anyone living in Northern California today, but one that was met with obstinance by the willful inhabitants of that era, a generally unyielding lot with a profound distrust of government matronism and a deep reverence for stick-to-itiveness, the miner’s luck and the sanctity of private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking with \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>, Partain stood in front of a map detailing the fire’s course, acknowledging there was no way to save every home. “It will continue to happen in the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985217\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985217 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People sit on blankets and fold out chairs in a grassy space.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attendees lounge on the grass during the dinner hour at the Sierra Storytelling Festival at the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center in North San Juan on July 8, 2023. (Photo by Erin Baldassari/KQED) \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With the future came more residents, living with more risk. Between 1990 and 2010, the county’s population \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/378/Demographics-Statistics\">grew 26%\u003c/a>, mirroring a trend seen across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/wui-issues-resolutions-report.pdf\">country (PDF)\u003c/a> as more people than ever flooded into wildland areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, nearly \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/data/wui-change/\">half of all homes built during that time period\u003c/a> were constructed in areas designated at “high or extreme risk of wildfire,” according to the Center for Insurance Policy and Research. Nevada County was no exception, where more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=5247\">nine out of every 10\u003c/a> residents live in “high or very high” fire hazard zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wildfires have become more destructive over the past 40 years is simple math, UC Berkeley’s Gonzalez said. “The losses of homes and people, who sadly die in a wildfire, is a function of the number of people who live in fire-prone areas,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985215\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985215 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The smoldering remains of a fire near a house.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A controlled fire burns near a home on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, California, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He continued: “Climate change is exacerbating the risk. So, that makes it even more important [to limit] the number of people who move into or build new houses in fire-prone areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Brute reckoning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 49er Fire left its mark on my psyche, attuning me to dry, summer winds, focusing my attention on anything that could produce an errant spark, and heightening my awareness, early on, of my own precarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many in Nevada County, myself included, it was still only a glimpse into a distant future. Brute reckoning came much later, in 2018, with the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, which is one county away from Nevada County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985409\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985409 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Trucks with piles of logs in the truck beds form a line in a lot near a wooded area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vehicles filled with green waste wait in line during a free residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>YubaNet’s Fusshoeller held a town hall event a week after the fire began. Minutes after the doors opened, the seats had filled to capacity, followed by the building’s overflow rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then there were still people outside,” Fusshoeller recalled. “It was the whole community. They were scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire became a wake-up call — and a rallying cry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We regularly hear that this is the next Camp Fire,” said Jamie Jones, the executive director of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, a nonprofit formed in the wake of the 49er Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985202\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985202\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people wearing hard hats walk along a roadway beside a stretch of burnt forest.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crew members from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they were performing a ‘mop up’ following a prescribed burn in Nevada County on June 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have watersheds that if a fire starts on the wrong day and the wrong conditions — or you could call it the right conditions — we could have a potential catastrophic loss like Paradise did,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spurred by that rallying cry, Jones’ organization ballooned from three employees to more than 50, with its own land management crew, \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/defensible-space-advisory-visit-dsav\">free advisory visits\u003c/a> for homeowners, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/chipping-program\">roving wood-chipper\u003c/a>, and a robust grant-writing department, among \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs\">other initiatives\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a huge priority to fund [wildfire] mitigation work,” Jones said. “We just kind of grabbed the bull by the horns and said, ‘We’ll do it. We’ll be that large nonprofit to work in this space.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985191\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985191 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Two people use a rake-like device to remove all of the dried green waste from the bed of a truck.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Employees help people unload green waste during a free residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the Camp Fire also incited residents to act. Today, Nevada County, with a population of just over \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/nevadacountycalifornia/PST045222\">100,000 people\u003c/a>, boasts the highest number of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/firewise-usa\">Firewise Communities\u003c/a> in the country — a program run by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) that encourages neighborhoods to organize and collectively complete fire safety projects, such as thinning trees along evacuation routes and clearing excess brush on individual properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the Camp Fire, Jones said there were 22 Firewise Communities in the county. As of October, there were 94, according to the NFPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it speaks volumes to how committed our community is to protecting their families, their loved ones, their neighbors, and the community that we live in,” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she said \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/06/23/newsom-misled-the-public-about-wildfire-prevention-efforts-ahead-of-worst-fire-season-on-record/\">progress remains stilted in other ways\u003c/a>. For instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/01/29/governor-newsom-announces-completion-of-emergency-projects-to-protect-wildfire-vulnerable-communities/\">fast-tracked 35 wildfire defense projects\u003c/a> across the state, including one in Nevada County, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/3748/Ponderosa-West-Grass-Valley-Defense-Zone#:~:text=The%20shaded%20fuel%20break%20lies,Newtown%20Road%20to%20the%20north.\">Ponderosa West Grass Valley Defense Zone shaded fuel break\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.ponderosawestproject.org/\">project\u003c/a> provided free brush clearing on residents’ properties to allow firefighters to more easily defend the town of Grass Valley. But four years after the first phase began, many of the property owners have failed to maintain their land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985410\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985410\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"One hand holds up a paper map while the other hand points to an area on the map.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jim Mathias, the wildfire prevention and safety manager of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, holds a map of a plan for a shaded fuel break in southern Nevada County on June 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a recent tour, Jones pointed to a property where the homeowner had positioned himself as a poster child of compliance. Crispy brush and small trees, perfect kindling for a big wildfire, now crowded beneath towering oak and manzanita trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He sold two years into the project,” she lamented. The new property owner never picked up the work. Continued compliance requires constant care — and a long memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Our place on the planet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As the spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, Shelly Covert carries with her a cultural memory that spans centuries. What it takes to live in wildland areas today, she said, is in some ways not so different from when her relatives lived freely off the land — and that is constant tending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her relatives, that meant cutting trees, harvesting smaller branches, and collecting reeds — work now done with chainsaws and machines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985420\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985420 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman's face is reflected in a mirror with brown writing.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shelly Covert, spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, in Nevada City, on June 6, 2022. \u003ccite>(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The difference, she said, is that the Nisenan used these materials in their homes, acorn granaries, tools and baskets. That these same actions also made the forests more resilient to — and protected the Nisenan from — catastrophic wildfires was secondary. Today, the accumulation of these same plant materials is a burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants it,” she said. “So, how are forests ever going to be tended in that way again when we don’t need the freaking stuff that’s all over the ground?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada County’s Fire Safe Council is trying to help relieve that burden with a free \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/residential-green-waste-disposal-2023\">green waste disposal site\u003c/a> in Grass Valley. This past June, on the last day it was open for the season, crews heaped logs into towering piles, mounded branches atop each other, and stacked firewood for the taking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985193\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985193 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a large wicker hat and sunglasses stands in front of piles of wood and speaks to the driver of a vehicle.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jonny Sjobeck (left) talks with Roland Harrison during a free green waste residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Suzi and Doug Clipperton waited in line for their turn to unload the towering pile of branches in the back of their truck. They had moved to the county from Palm Springs two years ago, and though their property is relatively small, at one acre, it still produces an abundance of vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the green waste disposal site, Suzi Clipperton said she would be forced to pay to get rid of the materials at the dump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so expensive, even the green waste,” she said. “Over $25 a truckload, over and over several times a month.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting to a truly sustainable lifestyle in the forested foothills is still a long way off, Covert said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just the way we’ve built our built lives,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s not what people, myself included, want to talk to her about these days. All we want to talk to her about is how to use fire to fight fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985211\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985211\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person holds a device to dried grass to start a fire.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dylan Drummond wields a drip torch, which he uses to ignite grasses during a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. The burn aims to reduce the brush and grasses that fuel megafires while also helping to restore native plants to the region. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The practice, called controlled or prescribed burns, has gained momentum in recent years as a way to clear the brush and grasses that fuel megafires. But Covert’s relatives also burned the land to remove bug infestations from trees, clear land for hunting and travel and promote certain kinds of plants. Public officials have been increasingly turning to her to tap into the tribe’s cultural knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one hand, Covert said she appreciates having a seat at the table, an opportunity her grandparents were never afforded. On the other, she said it’s hard for her not to roll her eyes during those same meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t tell me those old people didn’t sit there and say, ‘You can’t not burn the land.’ It was unfathomable to them,” she said. “We have to burn the land, and we have to burn our dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985413\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985413\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Green plants sprout from a burned land.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This yampa root survives a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, California, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When white settlers arrived during the Gold Rush, they not only outlawed the practice of burning the land but also the Nisenan practice of cremating their dead. And, while government officials now recognize fire as essential to maintaining forest health, Nisenan cremations are still outlawed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During those ceremonies, the nearest female relatives of the deceased would mix pine pitch with ash to blacken their heads and shoulders, washing their faces only after the mixture had worn off, thus defining the period of mourning. Other relatives and friends gathered around to sing and cry. Every year, an annual mourning ceremony, or “Second Burning,” was held for everyone who died that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My grandma said that the old ladies used to wipe each other’s tears and hold each other up because they were so fraught with sadness,” Covert said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Covert, burning the land and burning the dead are not two practices with distinct purposes and outcomes. They are the same practice for the same purpose of binding humanity to all other life and to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985210\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985210\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A fire burns dried grasses around the truck of a tree.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers perform a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She said the cremation ceremony is at the core: “It is the kickstarter of all these other protocols that come into play that are respect for the land, respect for the animals, respect for the spirit, respect for one another. And that’s it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is the foundation that allows them to see themselves as both indebted to a place and responsible for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have thumbs. We can light fire. We can pull and tend the rubbish in the forests,” Covert said. “That is our place on this planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Good fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In a small community on the western flank of Nevada County, atop a ridge overlooking Lake Wildwood, where the 49er Fire raged 35 years ago, three young men holding drip torches set fire to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was an abnormally cool June day. The crew of roughly a dozen, dressed in flannel shirts, blue jeans and boots, worked methodically downhill. Some held water bladders to douse fires burning into tree roots. Others were posted at control lines to ensure the fire stayed within its boundaries. One roamed the perimeter on a motorcycle to watch for spotfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985414\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985414\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man holds a water hose near a smoked filled forest area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Bratton uses a hose to douse the roots of a pine tree during a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They were lighting a controlled burn on the roughly 80-acre property, with the twin goals of reducing the wildfire risk and promoting native plants, which often need the low-intensity fires to drop seeds or sprout from dormancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you see the effects of fire, it all makes sense,” said Tim Van Wagner, an organic farmer in Nevada County and broadcast burn practitioner, who led the burn that day. “All of a sudden, you actually realize the insanity of how we have been able to suppress fire and the damage it’s done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more fuel there is to burn, the hotter the fire becomes, and the more likely they are to \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-20/california-forests-are-vanishing-as-wildfires-worsen\">permanently incinerate\u003c/a> even the most fire-adapted forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985214\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985214\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a baseball cap walks through a smokey open space.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Van Wagner, a broadcast burn practitioner, oversees a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But bringing “good fire” back hasn’t been easy, said fire historian and author Stephen Pyne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We spent 50 years trying to take all fire out of the landscape,” he said, “and we’ve spent 50 years trying to put good fire back in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal regulators restricted broadcast burns beginning in 1910, following a particularly fearsome spate of fires known as the “Big Blowup,” when some 3 million acres of forestland in Idaho and Montana \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5444731.pdf\">burned over the course of two short days (PDF)\u003c/a>, killing 86 people — the most in US history, until \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maui-hawaii-fires-death-toll-rcna105387\">this year’s fires in Maui\u003c/a>. By the time the National Parks Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/11/californias-wildfire-controlled-prescribed-burns-native-americans/#:~:text=In%201968%2C%20the%20National%20Park,introduced%20fire%20to%20their%20landscapes.\">changed its policy\u003c/a> in 1968, areas that had been accustomed to periodic fires were overloaded with fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combine that excess vegetation with rising temperatures, and Pyne said existing models of fire behavior no longer hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are being overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re seeing it in Canada now and parts of the Mediterranean, as well as parts of the U.S., and we’re creating a new world out of this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans once controlled fire. Now, Pyne said fire is controlling us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve taken what had always been our best friend, and we’re making it our worst enemy,” he said. “Even if we tame the climate, we remove the fossil fuel part of it, we still have a relentless obligation to work with fire in the lands that remain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985415\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985415\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man looks up and away from the camera while holding his arm out while brush burns nearby.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Van Wagner, a broadcast burn practitioner, oversees a prescribed burn on private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In California, policy leaders from Gov. Newsom down to local leaders are encouraging controlled burns. But the process has been hampered, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">in part\u003c/a>, by the slow rollout of its certification program for burn bosses. The designation is crucial for people like Van Wagner because it would allow them to tap into a \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretaskforce.org/prescribed-fire-liability-claims-fund-pilot/#:~:text=Administered%20by%20CAL%20FIRE%2C%20the,burn%20boss%20or%20cultural%20practitioner.\">$20 million pool of insurance to cover damages from fires set under prescribed conditions\u003c/a>. But, as of August, there were \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/divisions/state-fire-training/cfstes-professional-certification/state-certified-prescribed-fire-burn-boss/\">only two dozen state-certified burn bosses\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hasn’t been a smooth process,” said Van Wagner, who is in the process of obtaining the certification. Without access to insurance, “it can be a basic game-over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985401\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985401 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01.jpg\" alt=\"Left: A man walks through dry yellow grasses while using a torch to light the grass on fire.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"881\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-800x367.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-1020x468.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-160x73.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-768x352.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-1536x705.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dylan Drummond wields a drip torch, which he uses to ignite grasses during a prescribed burn on private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, on June 22, 2023. The burn aims to reduce the brush and grasses that fuel mega-fires while also helping to restore native plants to the region. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the U.S. Forest Service, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/news/releases/statement-forest-service-chief-randy-moore-announcing-pause-prescribed-fire\">fewer than 1%\u003c/a> of controlled burns get out of control, but they still make neighbors nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s foreign to most people,” Van Wagner said. “So, there’s more of a fear response than understanding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Fancy Fechser, who owns the Nevada County property where Van Wagner was burning, learning to live with fire is part of what it means to live in the foothills. She and her husband moved there with their family from Los Angeles in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the luck of the draw here, and that’s something you have to live with,” she said. “But the control you can have — I mean, I feel so much better now that we did this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985417\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985417\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand on the side of a hill with a forest behind them.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fancy Fechser (right) talks with prescribed burn practitioner Tim Van Wagner following a prescribed burn on her property in Penn Valley on June 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fechser hopes that in the long run, the work done here will make both her property and the surrounding community safer from megafires and that it’ll be more resilient for the climate changes to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t love looking at a charred backyard, but I know the point,” she said. “We have to look in the future here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Grieving the future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Oakland-based journalist Erica Hellerstein, part of looking into California’s future means grieving — not a lost past, but a future that may never come to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on this idea in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/grieving-california/\">2022 Coda Story essay\u003c/a>, she wrote, “A building that burns can be rebuilt. But if fire incinerates a state of mind, can that be put back together?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985209\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985209\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with long hairs sits in front of a bookshelf indoors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland-based journalist Erica Hellerstein poses for a portrait in her apartment overlooking Lake Merritt on June 30, 2023. In her Coda Story essay, Grieving California, she explored feelings of climate anxiety associated with grief — specifically, ‘grieving a future that may never come to pass’ as a result of warming global temperatures. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hellerstein remembers the rupture when her memories of the past severed from her expectations of the future. It was September 2020, and smoke from fires burning across the state had smothered the sky. She watched, with jarring dissonance, as partygoers in hazmat masks waited outside a nightclub in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were just pretending everything was normal,” she said. “That was another turning point for me, just cognitively of being like, ‘OK, yeah, things are really not what I remember from my childhood growing up here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, it was visiting Paradise this summer five years after the Camp Fire ravaged the area, and seeing its pine trees replaced with shrubby manzanita and sprouting oaks. As fires and drought kill the mixed conifer trees that give the Sierra foothills their signature beauty, other plants more accustomed to Southern California’s clime are slowly replacing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985418\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A house sits on a hillside dotted with green shrubs and dry grasses in the foreground.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Empty lots dot the side of a residential area of Paradise on Aug. 9, 2023. The Camp Fire, a deadly fire that destroyed much of the towns of Paradise and Concow, swept through the area in 2018. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These pine trees — whose smell, earthy and fresh after the first fall rain, is permanently imprinted in my olfactory memory — are some of the most threatened. Of all the impacts climate change may bring, their prospective loss is one I haven’t quite reconciled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much grief there because we’ve had it so good in our life,” said Sam Hinrichs, a resident of Nevada County for 35 years. “We’ve had it so good, and we didn’t pay attention to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hinrichs was once a volunteer firefighter and used to do wildfire mitigation work. Now, she sits on the board of the North San Juan Fire Protection District in Nevada County. She’s keenly aware of her own risk of living three miles down a gravel road, surrounded by forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do look at those climate maps, and I see where the danger zones are,” she said. “I think about fire every day, all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985419\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985419\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A dead tree is surrounded by green trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead tree stands in the Inimim Forest on Aug. 9, 2023. A prolonged drought in California that began in 2000 and has been the most extreme since the 1500s has resulted in significant tree mortality. The mixed conifer trees of the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada Foothills are particularly threatened. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She’s watched the pine trees around her house turn brown from bark beetles that thrive in hotter weather and overproduce, killing the trees they feed on. It’s something she wants her son, Stanley, to see, so he can learn what to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though he’s only 6 years old, she’s already gotten him involved in tending their land, identifying which pine and cedar trees to fell, their seedlings replanted upslope, where it’s cooler, and which Black Oaks that can tolerate warmer weather, to leave in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not feeling precious about [the pines] anymore,” she said. “I just want to give him skills for resilience and noticing what needs to happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985423\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985423\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A clearing in a wooded area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A significantly thinned area of the Inimim Forest on the San Juan Ridge in Nevada County on Aug. 9, 2023, co-managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Yuba Watershed Institute, a local nonprofit that got its start in the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s. The management plan has thinned the forest, allowing light to filter through the trees and keeping brush close to the ground, making the area more likely to survive a wildfire. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Noticing, and knowing, what needs to happen is not an innate skill. It’s one Hinrichs developed from growing up in the area and from hand-clearing most of her 17-acre property. Using chainsaws and pole saws, she’s worked acre-by-acre, determining which plants hold birds’ nests or provide cover for nursing deers and which can be removed. It’s a labor-intensive process, but it also gives her unique insight into the forest’s health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The quail have come back since we’ve done this clearing,” she said. “I had only 12 quail, and now we’re up to like, 40, which is really cool.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hinrichs cannot know whether these efforts will be enough to save her home from a wildfire. Like many in this more remote part of the county, she lives without an insurer willing to cover her losses, relying instead on her own prevention efforts of hand-clearing the land and using prescribed fire to reduce her risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I married this land. I’ve made this my project,” she said. “If my house burns down, I’ll build another one. Probably. I’m trying to make it so my house doesn’t burn down, but fire is also just part of this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taking care\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In her book, \u003cem>Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire\u003c/em>, Berkeley author Colleen Morton Busch describes how a group of Buddhist monks at the Tassajara Zen Center in California’s Carmel Valley prepared for a wildfire bearing down on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was 2008, during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tassajara-monks-practice-Zen-of-firefighting-3277372.php\">Basin Complex Fire\u003c/a>, and there was a debate among the monks and their students about the Zen Buddhist idea of non-attachment. Some argued to let the monastery burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985206\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985206\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with glasses sits at a table in an indoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Berkeley author Colleen Morton Busch poses for a portrait at her home on Sept. 19, 2023. Morton Busch is the author of ‘Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire,’ which describes the ways a group of monks at the Tassajara Zen Center in California’s Carmel Valley prepared and then defended against a wildfire bearing down on them. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the end, a group of five decided to stay and defend it. Morton-Busch wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clever Zen teacher might say that standing back and letting the monastery burn belies a kind of attachment to the idea of non-attachment. That trying to save it when it could all burn anyway is true non-attachment. In trying to save Tassajara from the fire, or your own life from disaster, you can’t be sure you will. In fact, you can lose everything you love in a moment. And that’s not a reason to give up. If anything, it’s a reason to turn toward the fire, recognizing it as a force of both creation and destruction and to take care of what’s right in front of you because that’s all you actually have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the fire bearing down on Tassajara is a lot like climate change — a planetary fire bearing down on all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other ways, it is very different. The monks had one fire to contend with, but across the globe, we all face a different climate. It may be a hurricane in one area, record-breaking temperatures in another, deadly wildfires one year, heavy rains the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, there are the ways these changes quietly manifest, and are mourned or endured, in each heart and mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Barbara was alive, and in the years since she passed away, most of our monthly trips up there were, and still are, spent tending the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985469\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985469\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A river and bank with trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-1536x1018.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Yuba River winds through the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Hoyt’s Crossing in August 2023. The river is one of many world-class amenities that lure people to the area. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a continuous cycle of labor defined by the seasons, we begin after the first fall rain, limbing trees and pulling the flammable and invasive scotch broom. In the spring, we mow down annual grasses to preemptively rob the summer’s fires of their fuel. This year, I’ll bring my now four-year-old along with me. Together, we’ll gather branches from the ground to stack for kindling. And hopefully one day, we’ll both learn how to put good fire on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is something liberating about this labor, which is itself a daily act of defiance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is here, in Nevada County and places like it, where no veneer of denialism can cover the stark realities already underway and where there is little time to brood over what is to come because there is too much work to be done now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these places, precariously poised on the knife’s edge of a shifting climate, the choice is clear: leave or turn toward the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In the Sierra Nevada foothills, residents confront what it means to live in fire country in an era of increasingly destructive wildfires.",
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"title": "Facing the Fire: California's Sierra Foothills Residents Race to Adapt | KQED",
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"headline": "Facing the Fire: California's Sierra Foothills Residents Race to Adapt",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">S\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hari Wilson woke up and stared at the sun, dull and orange against a ruddy sky. She checked the Air Quality Index app on her phone and put on a mask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt just kind of down,” she said. “You know, there’s that orange sky, gray day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of people across the Midwest and Northeast this past June, she saw smoke from Canadian wildfires. Though the fires were thousands of miles away, she couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt trapped in the smoke,” she said. “And it made me think a lot about my friends in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shari Wilson and her husband had moved back to their home state of Michigan less than a year prior. Before that, they had spent nearly four decades in California, more than half of it in Nevada City, a small town on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, about an hour’s drive from Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985405\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985405 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-61-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dark clouds roll into Nevada City, Nevada County, on Aug. 15, 2023.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The quintessential Gold Rush-era town, complete with a vibrant arts scene and quaint, historic downtown, is surrounded by pine forests. Shari Wilson’s husband, Mark Wilson, said when they first moved there, those trees were a big part of the draw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a great evergreen tree that grew two feet away from our deck,” he said. “We thought, ‘This is so great, we can watch the birds.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more than two decades, the idea that a wildfire could level their house seemed distant. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/a-walk-in-the-ashes-of-the-tubbs-fire-five-years-later-in-sonoma-county/\">2017 Tubbs Fire\u003c/a> in California’s wine country brought it home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire tore through a suburban neighborhood, killing 22 people. A year later, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-20/five-years-after-the-camp-fire-paradise-survivors-see-hard-future-for-maui\">the Camp Fire\u003c/a> decimated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That made it real,” Mark Wilson said. “And it became a real feeling that this could easily happen to us tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985421\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985421\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A sign in the form of a cross sits next to the side of a road in dusk light.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-59-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A memorial reads, ‘Faith, Hope, Paradise,’ in Paradise on Aug. 9, 2023. The Camp Fire, a deadly fire that destroyed much of the towns of Paradise and Concow, swept through the area in 2018. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The couple started thinking about where else to live. Shari Wilson was quick to say it wasn’t just due to the fires. “We aren’t climate refugees,” she said. They both grew up in Michigan and wanted to live close to family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when this summer’s smoke began to blot out the sun, Mark Wilson said it was a grim reminder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It made me sad because it was a reminder that it’s not just California. It’s not just in one place. It’s everywhere,” he said. “And no matter where you go, climate change is going to catch up with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985407\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985407 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A red sign with white lettering is nailed to a tree.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign advertising defensible space clearance for wildfire preparation hangs on a tree along the San Juan Ridge near Nevada City on June 27, 2023. The area is heavily forested and borders the Yuba River near historic towns that date back to the 1849 California Gold Rush. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As rising global temperatures bake the surrounding pine trees, oaks and madrones of the Sierra Nevada mountains, residents living in its scattered communities have a choice: to remain in the fire’s path or hedge their bets elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a question my family found ourselves facing, but in reverse, after my partner inherited a house in Nevada County. It is a place where we both spent our childhoods and where we hoped to one day raise our daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fire has always been part of the bargain of living there. But as climate change fuels wildfires of unprecedented proportions, it’s rewriting the terms of that old agreement. As it does, that’s forced us, like many in the forested foothills, to renegotiate what we’re willing to do — and how much we’re willing to risk — to live there.\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=KQINC1360589321&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Nevada County, measures to mitigate the threat of wildfires are underway, but their effectiveness has been stunted by decades of land management policies that sought to suppress all fires and led to an overabundance of brush and trees. Now, residents are racing to make up for lost time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For communities across the globe similarly poised on the knife’s edge of catastrophe — whether the threat is rising seas, stronger hurricanes or longer periods of extreme heat — the question is how to preserve and protect these places, or as retired fire scientist and Nevada County resident Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman put it, “What does it mean to live in different environments? What does it mean to grow up in an area? What does it mean to be human?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Barbara’s house\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>My partner’s mom, Barbara, was 79 when she passed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She left behind a two-bedroom Mediterranean-style home with an orange exterior, its hue varied and weathered, one wall splashed robin’s egg blue. Situated on a 13-acre property in the northwestern corner of Nevada County, the house is not only a mausoleum of her artifacts but a physical manifestation of her memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Barbara had suffered a stroke, and we spent 10 days in the hospital hoping for an improvement in her condition that never came. During that time, and in the weeks after she passed away, the house was a vessel for our grief. It held us because it held so much of her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985313\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985313 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB.jpg\" alt=\"A one level house with a tile roof is surrounded by trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230627-SoldOutBarbaraHouse-Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_1-EB-1536x1018.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barbara built her home with wildfires in mind. The walls are made from a concrete-like material a foot thick that’s rated to withstand 12 hours of burning. S-shaped tiles line the roof, and a gravel driveway encircles the home. Photographed in August 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When we finally turned off the lights and locked the doors to return home to the Bay Area, we did so reluctantly, wondering how and when we might move our lives there. Beneath our decision was an emerging hope for our not-yet-one-year-old daughter — that, although she would never know her grandmother, she might know the house her grandmother built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That summer, smoke from two dozen wildfires loomed over Nevada County and drifted across the state. On one particularly bad day in the Bay Area, it grew so thick \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/the-day-the-san-francisco-sky-turned-orange\">daylight turned to dusk\u003c/a>. It was then when I first began to wonder what kind of future our daughter might inherit if we chose to move to Nevada County, and what it would be like to live in a place where my own memories were constantly clashing with new realities.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Nothing left to burn\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>They call her the voice of doom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From her home office overlooking the Yuba River in Nevada County, Pascale Fusshoeller translates the precise, militaristic jargon of wildland firefighting departments into English, conveying need-to-know information on a fire’s origins, its speed and direction to readers across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985197\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985197\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The charred remains of burnt trees stand out from newly grown plants in a field.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66840_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-70-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jim Mathias, Wildfire Prevention and Safety Manager of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, drives through an area of the county burned by wildfire on June 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fusshoeller co-founded and edits YubaNet.com, which began in 1999 as the Internet burgeoned from niche to mainstream. She and her wife, Susan Levitz, both career journalists, intended to run a community events page.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That changed, Fusshoeller said, the day the site went live, and she spotted a towering plume of smoke rising from the ridge facing their home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s how we got into fire information,” she said. She hasn’t looked back. “It helps people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985203\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985203\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing hard hats work digging in a forest.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_05-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crew members from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they performed a ‘mop up’ following a prescribed burn in Nevada County on June 21, 2023. Using hand tools, the crew members will ensure that all of the fire has been extinguished. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For Fusshoeller, this means that whenever a fire occurs in the Sierra Nevada mountains, her days start early and end late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/there-s-no-more-typical-wildfire-season-california-it-may-n934521\">It used to be\u003c/a> that fire season began in August and wrapped up by the end of September. Now, she says if there is a “fire season” at all, it begins in May and ends in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And of course, some years, there’s large fires in December,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As global temperatures rise, so, too, does the number of wildfires. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, across the western United States, human-caused climate change has doubled the cumulative area burned by wildfires over natural levels since 1984.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985422\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2006px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985422\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2006\" height=\"728\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1.png 2006w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-800x290.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1020x370.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-160x58.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-768x279.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1536x557.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Figure_2_FAQ_2.3.1-1920x697.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2006px) 100vw, 2006px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure FAQ2.3.1 | (a) Springs Fire, May 2, 2013, Thousand Oaks, California, USA (photo by Michael Robinson Chávez, Los Angeles Times). (b) Cumulative area burned by wildfire in the western USA, with (orange) and without (yellow) the increased heat and aridity of climate change. \u003ccite>(IPCC Sixth Assessment Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Patrick Gonzalez, a forest ecologist and climate change scientist at UC Berkeley, said the problem is particularly acute in California, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1-200-years/#:~:text=An%20exceptionally%20dry%20year%20in%202021%20helped%20break%20the%20record,least%20a%20couple%20of%20decades.\">a prolonged drought in recent years\u003c/a> has dried out plants and soils.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In Northern and Central California, almost all of the increase in burned area [over natural levels] has come from human-caused climate change since 1996,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, \u003ca href=\"https://34c031f8-c9fd-4018-8c5a-4159cdff6b0d-cdn-endpoint.azureedge.net/-/media/calfire-website/our-impact/fire-statistics/featured-items/top20_destruction.pdf?rev=ee6ea855632a4b56a46adea1d3c8022f&hash=5B8B3A1A35CBB52CB0ED7A010F0B52E0\">18 of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires (PDF)\u003c/a> have occurred since 2003. Nevada County had been spared. Looking at a map, Fusshoeller noted that all the surrounding counties had experienced large and destructive wildfires during that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s not to say that one day we will not have a large catastrophic fire here,” she said. Nevada County shares the same mix of vegetation, topography and climate conditions. “There is nothing else left to burn in the foothills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The forerunner\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>There is something very Californian about believing it’s possible to survive anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joan Didion knew this. In her 1968 collection of essays, \u003cem>Slouching Toward Bethlehem\u003c/em>, Didion wrote of the desert metropolis’ clime, “Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same could be said of the entire state. Where early white settlers found a floodplain, they built their capital city, Sacramento. And even amid the rubble of the city’s most destructive earthquake, San Franciscans nonetheless rebuilt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985404\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985404\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02.jpg\" alt=\"Left: Dark smoke billows above a structure. Right: Light gray and reddish smoke rises above a home surrounded by trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"923\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-800x385.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-1020x490.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-160x77.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-768x369.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-02-1536x738.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A column of smoke rises behind a house in Lake Wildwood, California, as Mark and Kathy Baldassari prepare to evacuate from the 49er Fire on Sept. 11, 1988. Right: Smoke from the 49er Fire rises behind homes in Lake Wildwood, a small community in Nevada County, on Sept. 11, 1988. The fire burned through nearly 36,000 acres and destroyed almost 150 homes, making it California’s third most destructive wildfire at the time. Now, it’s not even in the top 20. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark and Kathy Baldassari)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My own earliest memory, if an infant can be said to have one, is of a thick column of gray and black smoke rising behind my family’s house the day we evacuated from a wildfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theunion.com/opinion/49er-fire-memories-where-were-you-30-years-ago-today/article_960384f0-6667-5f66-a6f9-fb0508006a76.html\">It was Sept. 11, 1988\u003c/a>. I was just over a year old. My dad would later describe the fire’s path: not a continuous wall, but jagged, like fingers on a hand, touching some homes, refusing others — sparing ours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And you kind of wonder why,” he mused, “why did it spare that house and burn that one?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was called the 49er Fire because it broke out near Highway 49 in Nevada County. It tore through nearly 36,000 acres of forest and grasslands and destroyed almost 150 homes. At the time, it was the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/49er-fire-destruction/\">third-largest wildfire\u003c/a> and is still the county’s most destructive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985219\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985219\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Several houses beside fire-scorched terrain.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1543\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-800x617.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1020x787.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-768x593.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1536x1185.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SO-S3-E6-SCAN-1-KQED-1920x1481.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 1988 49er Fire burned through nearly 36,000 acres in Nevada County and destroyed almost 150 homes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark and Kathy Baldassari)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a prediction that feels prescient today, Jerry Partain, then-director of California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, now called Cal Fire, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/624226617/?clipping_id=115881062&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjYyNDIyNjYxNywiaWF0IjoxNjk4OTU1MDA4LCJleHAiOjE2OTkwNDE0MDh9.s5IFZHnqPAFNjR2pbvWX3mHL3voE5oItjgwOsPg0Srk\">told \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, “This [fire] is the classic. This is what we’ve been preaching about for the past several years. This is just the forerunner.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Partain had been preaching about — fireproofing homes and managing the surrounding vegetation — is now a familiar sermon to anyone living in Northern California today, but one that was met with obstinance by the willful inhabitants of that era, a generally unyielding lot with a profound distrust of government matronism and a deep reverence for stick-to-itiveness, the miner’s luck and the sanctity of private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking with \u003cem>The Sacramento Bee\u003c/em>, Partain stood in front of a map detailing the fire’s course, acknowledging there was no way to save every home. “It will continue to happen in the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985217\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985217 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"People sit on blankets and fold out chairs in a grassy space.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-SIERRA-STORYTELLING-FESTIVAL_NORTH-SAN-JUAN01-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attendees lounge on the grass during the dinner hour at the Sierra Storytelling Festival at the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center in North San Juan on July 8, 2023. (Photo by Erin Baldassari/KQED) \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>With the future came more residents, living with more risk. Between 1990 and 2010, the county’s population \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/378/Demographics-Statistics\">grew 26%\u003c/a>, mirroring a trend seen across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/wui-issues-resolutions-report.pdf\">country (PDF)\u003c/a> as more people than ever flooded into wildland areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, nearly \u003ca href=\"https://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/data/wui-change/\">half of all homes built during that time period\u003c/a> were constructed in areas designated at “high or extreme risk of wildfire,” according to the Center for Insurance Policy and Research. Nevada County was no exception, where more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=5247\">nine out of every 10\u003c/a> residents live in “high or very high” fire hazard zones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wildfires have become more destructive over the past 40 years is simple math, UC Berkeley’s Gonzalez said. “The losses of homes and people, who sadly die in a wildfire, is a function of the number of people who live in fire-prone areas,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985215\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985215 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The smoldering remains of a fire near a house.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY14-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A controlled fire burns near a home on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, California, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He continued: “Climate change is exacerbating the risk. So, that makes it even more important [to limit] the number of people who move into or build new houses in fire-prone areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Brute reckoning\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The 49er Fire left its mark on my psyche, attuning me to dry, summer winds, focusing my attention on anything that could produce an errant spark, and heightening my awareness, early on, of my own precarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for many in Nevada County, myself included, it was still only a glimpse into a distant future. Brute reckoning came much later, in 2018, with the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, which is one county away from Nevada County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985409\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985409 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Trucks with piles of logs in the truck beds form a line in a lot near a wooded area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-19-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vehicles filled with green waste wait in line during a free residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>YubaNet’s Fusshoeller held a town hall event a week after the fire began. Minutes after the doors opened, the seats had filled to capacity, followed by the building’s overflow rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then there were still people outside,” Fusshoeller recalled. “It was the whole community. They were scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire became a wake-up call — and a rallying cry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We regularly hear that this is the next Camp Fire,” said Jamie Jones, the executive director of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, a nonprofit formed in the wake of the 49er Fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985202\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985202\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A group of people wearing hard hats walk along a roadway beside a stretch of burnt forest.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-BEAR-TRAP-PRESCRIBED-BURN_NEVADA-COUNTY_01-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crew members from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they were performing a ‘mop up’ following a prescribed burn in Nevada County on June 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have watersheds that if a fire starts on the wrong day and the wrong conditions — or you could call it the right conditions — we could have a potential catastrophic loss like Paradise did,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spurred by that rallying cry, Jones’ organization ballooned from three employees to more than 50, with its own land management crew, \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/defensible-space-advisory-visit-dsav\">free advisory visits\u003c/a> for homeowners, a \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/chipping-program\">roving wood-chipper\u003c/a>, and a robust grant-writing department, among \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs\">other initiatives\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became a huge priority to fund [wildfire] mitigation work,” Jones said. “We just kind of grabbed the bull by the horns and said, ‘We’ll do it. We’ll be that large nonprofit to work in this space.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985191\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985191 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Two people use a rake-like device to remove all of the dried green waste from the bed of a truck.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66792_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-08-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Employees help people unload green waste during a free residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But the Camp Fire also incited residents to act. Today, Nevada County, with a population of just over \u003ca href=\"https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/nevadacountycalifornia/PST045222\">100,000 people\u003c/a>, boasts the highest number of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/firewise-usa\">Firewise Communities\u003c/a> in the country — a program run by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) that encourages neighborhoods to organize and collectively complete fire safety projects, such as thinning trees along evacuation routes and clearing excess brush on individual properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the Camp Fire, Jones said there were 22 Firewise Communities in the county. As of October, there were 94, according to the NFPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it speaks volumes to how committed our community is to protecting their families, their loved ones, their neighbors, and the community that we live in,” Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, she said \u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2021/06/23/newsom-misled-the-public-about-wildfire-prevention-efforts-ahead-of-worst-fire-season-on-record/\">progress remains stilted in other ways\u003c/a>. For instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/01/29/governor-newsom-announces-completion-of-emergency-projects-to-protect-wildfire-vulnerable-communities/\">fast-tracked 35 wildfire defense projects\u003c/a> across the state, including one in Nevada County, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nevadacountyca.gov/3748/Ponderosa-West-Grass-Valley-Defense-Zone#:~:text=The%20shaded%20fuel%20break%20lies,Newtown%20Road%20to%20the%20north.\">Ponderosa West Grass Valley Defense Zone shaded fuel break\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.ponderosawestproject.org/\">project\u003c/a> provided free brush clearing on residents’ properties to allow firefighters to more easily defend the town of Grass Valley. But four years after the first phase began, many of the property owners have failed to maintain their land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985410\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985410\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"One hand holds up a paper map while the other hand points to an area on the map.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-75-BL-qut-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jim Mathias, the wildfire prevention and safety manager of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, holds a map of a plan for a shaded fuel break in southern Nevada County on June 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a recent tour, Jones pointed to a property where the homeowner had positioned himself as a poster child of compliance. Crispy brush and small trees, perfect kindling for a big wildfire, now crowded beneath towering oak and manzanita trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He sold two years into the project,” she lamented. The new property owner never picked up the work. Continued compliance requires constant care — and a long memory.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Our place on the planet\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>As the spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, Shelly Covert carries with her a cultural memory that spans centuries. What it takes to live in wildland areas today, she said, is in some ways not so different from when her relatives lived freely off the land — and that is constant tending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her relatives, that meant cutting trees, harvesting smaller branches, and collecting reeds — work now done with chainsaws and machines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985420\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985420 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman's face is reflected in a mirror with brown writing.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/GettyImages-1241501048-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shelly Covert, spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, in Nevada City, on June 6, 2022. \u003ccite>(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The difference, she said, is that the Nisenan used these materials in their homes, acorn granaries, tools and baskets. That these same actions also made the forests more resilient to — and protected the Nisenan from — catastrophic wildfires was secondary. Today, the accumulation of these same plant materials is a burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants it,” she said. “So, how are forests ever going to be tended in that way again when we don’t need the freaking stuff that’s all over the ground?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada County’s Fire Safe Council is trying to help relieve that burden with a free \u003ca href=\"https://www.areyoufiresafe.com/programs/residential-green-waste-disposal-2023\">green waste disposal site\u003c/a> in Grass Valley. This past June, on the last day it was open for the season, crews heaped logs into towering piles, mounded branches atop each other, and stacked firewood for the taking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985193\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985193 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a large wicker hat and sunglasses stands in front of piles of wood and speaks to the driver of a vehicle.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/RS66813_230626-HousingNevadaCoWildfire-38-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jonny Sjobeck (left) talks with Roland Harrison during a free green waste residential disposal hosted by the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County in Grass Valley on June 26, 2023. Residents can bring all tree and plant trimmings, weeds, leaves, branches, and pine needles, except for some plants like scotch broom and poison oak, in an effort to create defensible space on their properties. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Suzi and Doug Clipperton waited in line for their turn to unload the towering pile of branches in the back of their truck. They had moved to the county from Palm Springs two years ago, and though their property is relatively small, at one acre, it still produces an abundance of vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the green waste disposal site, Suzi Clipperton said she would be forced to pay to get rid of the materials at the dump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so expensive, even the green waste,” she said. “Over $25 a truckload, over and over several times a month.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting to a truly sustainable lifestyle in the forested foothills is still a long way off, Covert said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just the way we’ve built our built lives,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s not what people, myself included, want to talk to her about these days. All we want to talk to her about is how to use fire to fight fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985211\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985211\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person holds a device to dried grass to start a fire.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY06-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dylan Drummond wields a drip torch, which he uses to ignite grasses during a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. The burn aims to reduce the brush and grasses that fuel megafires while also helping to restore native plants to the region. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The practice, called controlled or prescribed burns, has gained momentum in recent years as a way to clear the brush and grasses that fuel megafires. But Covert’s relatives also burned the land to remove bug infestations from trees, clear land for hunting and travel and promote certain kinds of plants. Public officials have been increasingly turning to her to tap into the tribe’s cultural knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one hand, Covert said she appreciates having a seat at the table, an opportunity her grandparents were never afforded. On the other, she said it’s hard for her not to roll her eyes during those same meetings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Don’t tell me those old people didn’t sit there and say, ‘You can’t not burn the land.’ It was unfathomable to them,” she said. “We have to burn the land, and we have to burn our dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985413\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985413\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Green plants sprout from a burned land.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County15-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This yampa root survives a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, California, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When white settlers arrived during the Gold Rush, they not only outlawed the practice of burning the land but also the Nisenan practice of cremating their dead. And, while government officials now recognize fire as essential to maintaining forest health, Nisenan cremations are still outlawed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During those ceremonies, the nearest female relatives of the deceased would mix pine pitch with ash to blacken their heads and shoulders, washing their faces only after the mixture had worn off, thus defining the period of mourning. Other relatives and friends gathered around to sing and cry. Every year, an annual mourning ceremony, or “Second Burning,” was held for everyone who died that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My grandma said that the old ladies used to wipe each other’s tears and hold each other up because they were so fraught with sadness,” Covert said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Covert, burning the land and burning the dead are not two practices with distinct purposes and outcomes. They are the same practice for the same purpose of binding humanity to all other life and to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985210\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985210\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A fire burns dried grasses around the truck of a tree.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY04-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers perform a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She said the cremation ceremony is at the core: “It is the kickstarter of all these other protocols that come into play that are respect for the land, respect for the animals, respect for the spirit, respect for one another. And that’s it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is the foundation that allows them to see themselves as both indebted to a place and responsible for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have thumbs. We can light fire. We can pull and tend the rubbish in the forests,” Covert said. “That is our place on this planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Good fire\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In a small community on the western flank of Nevada County, atop a ridge overlooking Lake Wildwood, where the 49er Fire raged 35 years ago, three young men holding drip torches set fire to the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was an abnormally cool June day. The crew of roughly a dozen, dressed in flannel shirts, blue jeans and boots, worked methodically downhill. Some held water bladders to douse fires burning into tree roots. Others were posted at control lines to ensure the fire stayed within its boundaries. One roamed the perimeter on a motorcycle to watch for spotfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985414\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985414\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man holds a water hose near a smoked filled forest area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County11-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Bratton uses a hose to douse the roots of a pine tree during a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They were lighting a controlled burn on the roughly 80-acre property, with the twin goals of reducing the wildfire risk and promoting native plants, which often need the low-intensity fires to drop seeds or sprout from dormancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you see the effects of fire, it all makes sense,” said Tim Van Wagner, an organic farmer in Nevada County and broadcast burn practitioner, who led the burn that day. “All of a sudden, you actually realize the insanity of how we have been able to suppress fire and the damage it’s done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more fuel there is to burn, the hotter the fire becomes, and the more likely they are to \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-20/california-forests-are-vanishing-as-wildfires-worsen\">permanently incinerate\u003c/a> even the most fire-adapted forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985214\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985214\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a baseball cap walks through a smokey open space.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-PRESCRIBED-BURN_PENN-VALLEY_NEVADA-COUNTY13-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Van Wagner, a broadcast burn practitioner, oversees a prescribed burn on a private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But bringing “good fire” back hasn’t been easy, said fire historian and author Stephen Pyne.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We spent 50 years trying to take all fire out of the landscape,” he said, “and we’ve spent 50 years trying to put good fire back in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal regulators restricted broadcast burns beginning in 1910, following a particularly fearsome spate of fires known as the “Big Blowup,” when some 3 million acres of forestland in Idaho and Montana \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5444731.pdf\">burned over the course of two short days (PDF)\u003c/a>, killing 86 people — the most in US history, until \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maui-hawaii-fires-death-toll-rcna105387\">this year’s fires in Maui\u003c/a>. By the time the National Parks Service \u003ca href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/11/californias-wildfire-controlled-prescribed-burns-native-americans/#:~:text=In%201968%2C%20the%20National%20Park,introduced%20fire%20to%20their%20landscapes.\">changed its policy\u003c/a> in 1968, areas that had been accustomed to periodic fires were overloaded with fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combine that excess vegetation with rising temperatures, and Pyne said existing models of fire behavior no longer hold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are being overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re seeing it in Canada now and parts of the Mediterranean, as well as parts of the U.S., and we’re creating a new world out of this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humans once controlled fire. Now, Pyne said fire is controlling us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve taken what had always been our best friend, and we’re making it our worst enemy,” he said. “Even if we tame the climate, we remove the fossil fuel part of it, we still have a relentless obligation to work with fire in the lands that remain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985415\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985415\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A man looks up and away from the camera while holding his arm out while brush burns nearby.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Prescribed-Burn_Penn-Valley_Nevada-County02-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Van Wagner, a broadcast burn practitioner, oversees a prescribed burn on private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, on June 22, 2023. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In California, policy leaders from Gov. Newsom down to local leaders are encouraging controlled burns. But the process has been hampered, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1979560/cal-fire-fumbles-key-responsibilities-to-prevent-catastrophic-wildfires-despite-historic-budget\">in part\u003c/a>, by the slow rollout of its certification program for burn bosses. The designation is crucial for people like Van Wagner because it would allow them to tap into a \u003ca href=\"https://wildfiretaskforce.org/prescribed-fire-liability-claims-fund-pilot/#:~:text=Administered%20by%20CAL%20FIRE%2C%20the,burn%20boss%20or%20cultural%20practitioner.\">$20 million pool of insurance to cover damages from fires set under prescribed conditions\u003c/a>. But, as of August, there were \u003ca href=\"https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/divisions/state-fire-training/cfstes-professional-certification/state-certified-prescribed-fire-burn-boss/\">only two dozen state-certified burn bosses\u003c/a> in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hasn’t been a smooth process,” said Van Wagner, who is in the process of obtaining the certification. Without access to insurance, “it can be a basic game-over,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985401\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1985401 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01.jpg\" alt=\"Left: A man walks through dry yellow grasses while using a torch to light the grass on fire.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"881\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-800x367.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-1020x468.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-160x73.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-768x352.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/SoldOut-Diptych-01-1536x705.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dylan Drummond wields a drip torch, which he uses to ignite grasses during a prescribed burn on private property in Penn Valley, a small, rural community in Nevada County, on June 22, 2023. The burn aims to reduce the brush and grasses that fuel mega-fires while also helping to restore native plants to the region. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to the U.S. Forest Service, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/news/releases/statement-forest-service-chief-randy-moore-announcing-pause-prescribed-fire\">fewer than 1%\u003c/a> of controlled burns get out of control, but they still make neighbors nervous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s foreign to most people,” Van Wagner said. “So, there’s more of a fear response than understanding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Fancy Fechser, who owns the Nevada County property where Van Wagner was burning, learning to live with fire is part of what it means to live in the foothills. She and her husband moved there with their family from Los Angeles in 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the luck of the draw here, and that’s something you have to live with,” she said. “But the control you can have — I mean, I feel so much better now that we did this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985417\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985417\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand on the side of a hill with a forest behind them.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Fancy-Fechser_Penn-Valley_01-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fancy Fechser (right) talks with prescribed burn practitioner Tim Van Wagner following a prescribed burn on her property in Penn Valley on June 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fechser hopes that in the long run, the work done here will make both her property and the surrounding community safer from megafires and that it’ll be more resilient for the climate changes to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t love looking at a charred backyard, but I know the point,” she said. “We have to look in the future here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Grieving the future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Oakland-based journalist Erica Hellerstein, part of looking into California’s future means grieving — not a lost past, but a future that may never come to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reflecting on this idea in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/grieving-california/\">2022 Coda Story essay\u003c/a>, she wrote, “A building that burns can be rebuilt. But if fire incinerates a state of mind, can that be put back together?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985209\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985209\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with long hairs sits in front of a bookshelf indoors.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-ERICA-HELLERSTEIN_OAKLAND_03-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oakland-based journalist Erica Hellerstein poses for a portrait in her apartment overlooking Lake Merritt on June 30, 2023. In her Coda Story essay, Grieving California, she explored feelings of climate anxiety associated with grief — specifically, ‘grieving a future that may never come to pass’ as a result of warming global temperatures. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hellerstein remembers the rupture when her memories of the past severed from her expectations of the future. It was September 2020, and smoke from fires burning across the state had smothered the sky. She watched, with jarring dissonance, as partygoers in hazmat masks waited outside a nightclub in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were just pretending everything was normal,” she said. “That was another turning point for me, just cognitively of being like, ‘OK, yeah, things are really not what I remember from my childhood growing up here.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For me, it was visiting Paradise this summer five years after the Camp Fire ravaged the area, and seeing its pine trees replaced with shrubby manzanita and sprouting oaks. As fires and drought kill the mixed conifer trees that give the Sierra foothills their signature beauty, other plants more accustomed to Southern California’s clime are slowly replacing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985418\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A house sits on a hillside dotted with green shrubs and dry grasses in the foreground.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230809-SoldOutParadise-46-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Empty lots dot the side of a residential area of Paradise on Aug. 9, 2023. The Camp Fire, a deadly fire that destroyed much of the towns of Paradise and Concow, swept through the area in 2018. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These pine trees — whose smell, earthy and fresh after the first fall rain, is permanently imprinted in my olfactory memory — are some of the most threatened. Of all the impacts climate change may bring, their prospective loss is one I haven’t quite reconciled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much grief there because we’ve had it so good in our life,” said Sam Hinrichs, a resident of Nevada County for 35 years. “We’ve had it so good, and we didn’t pay attention to that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hinrichs was once a volunteer firefighter and used to do wildfire mitigation work. Now, she sits on the board of the North San Juan Fire Protection District in Nevada County. She’s keenly aware of her own risk of living three miles down a gravel road, surrounded by forest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do look at those climate maps, and I see where the danger zones are,” she said. “I think about fire every day, all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985419\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985419\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A dead tree is surrounded by green trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dead tree stands in the Inimim Forest on Aug. 9, 2023. A prolonged drought in California that began in 2000 and has been the most extreme since the 1500s has resulted in significant tree mortality. The mixed conifer trees of the mid-elevation Sierra Nevada Foothills are particularly threatened. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She’s watched the pine trees around her house turn brown from bark beetles that thrive in hotter weather and overproduce, killing the trees they feed on. It’s something she wants her son, Stanley, to see, so he can learn what to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though he’s only 6 years old, she’s already gotten him involved in tending their land, identifying which pine and cedar trees to fell, their seedlings replanted upslope, where it’s cooler, and which Black Oaks that can tolerate warmer weather, to leave in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not feeling precious about [the pines] anymore,” she said. “I just want to give him skills for resilience and noticing what needs to happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985423\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985423\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A clearing in a wooded area.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Inimim-Forest_San-Juan-Ridge_03-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A significantly thinned area of the Inimim Forest on the San Juan Ridge in Nevada County on Aug. 9, 2023, co-managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Yuba Watershed Institute, a local nonprofit that got its start in the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s. The management plan has thinned the forest, allowing light to filter through the trees and keeping brush close to the ground, making the area more likely to survive a wildfire. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Noticing, and knowing, what needs to happen is not an innate skill. It’s one Hinrichs developed from growing up in the area and from hand-clearing most of her 17-acre property. Using chainsaws and pole saws, she’s worked acre-by-acre, determining which plants hold birds’ nests or provide cover for nursing deers and which can be removed. It’s a labor-intensive process, but it also gives her unique insight into the forest’s health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The quail have come back since we’ve done this clearing,” she said. “I had only 12 quail, and now we’re up to like, 40, which is really cool.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hinrichs cannot know whether these efforts will be enough to save her home from a wildfire. Like many in this more remote part of the county, she lives without an insurer willing to cover her losses, relying instead on her own prevention efforts of hand-clearing the land and using prescribed fire to reduce her risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I married this land. I’ve made this my project,” she said. “If my house burns down, I’ll build another one. Probably. I’m trying to make it so my house doesn’t burn down, but fire is also just part of this place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taking care\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In her book, \u003cem>Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire\u003c/em>, Berkeley author Colleen Morton Busch describes how a group of Buddhist monks at the Tassajara Zen Center in California’s Carmel Valley prepared for a wildfire bearing down on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was 2008, during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tassajara-monks-practice-Zen-of-firefighting-3277372.php\">Basin Complex Fire\u003c/a>, and there was a debate among the monks and their students about the Zen Buddhist idea of non-attachment. Some argued to let the monastery burn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985206\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985206\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A person with glasses sits at a table in an indoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/231110-COLLEEN-MORTON-BUSCH_BERKELEY_02-EB-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Berkeley author Colleen Morton Busch poses for a portrait at her home on Sept. 19, 2023. Morton Busch is the author of ‘Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire,’ which describes the ways a group of monks at the Tassajara Zen Center in California’s Carmel Valley prepared and then defended against a wildfire bearing down on them. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the end, a group of five decided to stay and defend it. Morton-Busch wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clever Zen teacher might say that standing back and letting the monastery burn belies a kind of attachment to the idea of non-attachment. That trying to save it when it could all burn anyway is true non-attachment. In trying to save Tassajara from the fire, or your own life from disaster, you can’t be sure you will. In fact, you can lose everything you love in a moment. And that’s not a reason to give up. If anything, it’s a reason to turn toward the fire, recognizing it as a force of both creation and destruction and to take care of what’s right in front of you because that’s all you actually have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways, the fire bearing down on Tassajara is a lot like climate change — a planetary fire bearing down on all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other ways, it is very different. The monks had one fire to contend with, but across the globe, we all face a different climate. It may be a hurricane in one area, record-breaking temperatures in another, deadly wildfires one year, heavy rains the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, there are the ways these changes quietly manifest, and are mourned or endured, in each heart and mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Barbara was alive, and in the years since she passed away, most of our monthly trips up there were, and still are, spent tending the land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985469\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985469\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A river and bank with trees.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1273\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Barbaras-House_North-San-Juan_3-qut-1536x1018.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Yuba River winds through the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Hoyt’s Crossing in August 2023. The river is one of many world-class amenities that lure people to the area. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a continuous cycle of labor defined by the seasons, we begin after the first fall rain, limbing trees and pulling the flammable and invasive scotch broom. In the spring, we mow down annual grasses to preemptively rob the summer’s fires of their fuel. This year, I’ll bring my now four-year-old along with me. Together, we’ll gather branches from the ground to stack for kindling. And hopefully one day, we’ll both learn how to put good fire on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is something liberating about this labor, which is itself a daily act of defiance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is here, in Nevada County and places like it, where no veneer of denialism can cover the stark realities already underway and where there is little time to brood over what is to come because there is too much work to be done now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these places, precariously poised on the knife’s edge of a shifting climate, the choice is clear: leave or turn toward the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "First Significant Snow to Arrive in the Sierra This Week",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 1:55 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service is forecasting the first significant snow of the season later this week in the Sierra Nevada \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span> with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937204/lake-tahoe-weather-forecast-road-conditions-snow-chains\">a pair of storms\u003c/a> expected for the region starting Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/TextProduct?product=afdrev\">The Weather Service’s Reno office on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains forecasts a “rather strong low-pressure system\u003c/a> with an accompanying cold front” moving between Wednesday and Thursday that will first bring a dusting of snow to areas above 8,000 feet in the Sierra. As much as 3 inches of snow is forecast to fall in areas above 7,000 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1716798249447956620\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on the storm’s precipitation rates, and how long it lasts through Wednesday afternoon, the Weather Service’s Reno office says that there’s “a likely chance” that snow levels could drop about 1,000 feet lower \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span> and that if this happens, valley floors in that region could see snow as well by late Wednesday evening. [aside postID=news_11937204 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/01/RS61930_GettyImages-1244621487-qut.jpg']This weather will also bring high winds, with gusts up to 45 miles per hour, possibly impacting roads. On high Sierra ridges, the Weather Service warns that gusts of up to 80 miles per hour are possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday will bring a “short dry-out period” before a second storm potentially arrives over the weekend, say forecasters, with the next cold front arriving Friday night into Saturday morning. The Reno office says the air mass “looks cold enough for snow levels down near most valley floors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, UC Berkeley’s research field station located at Donner Pass, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/UCB_CSSL/status/1716499292578529516\">this week’s flakes would represent the season’s “first measurable snow”\u003c/a> — defined previously by the lab as “0.5 cm (~0.2”) of snowfall” or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This upcoming storm isn’t quite the first snow to grace the Sierra this season, as\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NWSReno/status/1708126472727417227\"> previous showers brought a little snow to the highest peaks\u003c/a> during the last weekend of September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 12, the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory reported its first “light dusting of snow” on the Donner Pass \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— \u003c/span>which the lab clarified “doesn’t officially count as our first day of snowfall, which requires a measurable amount of accumulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 1:55 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Weather Service is forecasting the first significant snow of the season later this week in the Sierra Nevada \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span> with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937204/lake-tahoe-weather-forecast-road-conditions-snow-chains\">a pair of storms\u003c/a> expected for the region starting Wednesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.weather.gov/wrh/TextProduct?product=afdrev\">The Weather Service’s Reno office on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains forecasts a “rather strong low-pressure system\u003c/a> with an accompanying cold front” moving between Wednesday and Thursday that will first bring a dusting of snow to areas above 8,000 feet in the Sierra. As much as 3 inches of snow is forecast to fall in areas above 7,000 feet.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Depending on the storm’s precipitation rates, and how long it lasts through Wednesday afternoon, the Weather Service’s Reno office says that there’s “a likely chance” that snow levels could drop about 1,000 feet lower \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span> and that if this happens, valley floors in that region could see snow as well by late Wednesday evening. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This weather will also bring high winds, with gusts up to 45 miles per hour, possibly impacting roads. On high Sierra ridges, the Weather Service warns that gusts of up to 80 miles per hour are possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friday will bring a “short dry-out period” before a second storm potentially arrives over the weekend, say forecasters, with the next cold front arriving Friday night into Saturday morning. The Reno office says the air mass “looks cold enough for snow levels down near most valley floors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, UC Berkeley’s research field station located at Donner Pass, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/UCB_CSSL/status/1716499292578529516\">this week’s flakes would represent the season’s “first measurable snow”\u003c/a> — defined previously by the lab as “0.5 cm (~0.2”) of snowfall” or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This upcoming storm isn’t quite the first snow to grace the Sierra this season, as\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/NWSReno/status/1708126472727417227\"> previous showers brought a little snow to the highest peaks\u003c/a> during the last weekend of September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Oct. 12, the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory reported its first “light dusting of snow” on the Donner Pass \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— \u003c/span>which the lab clarified “doesn’t officially count as our first day of snowfall, which requires a measurable amount of accumulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story aired \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960944/restoring-meadows-in-sierra-nevada-a-key-to-healthy-ecosystems\">on The California Report \u003c/a>— and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2023-08-25/in-a-burn-scar-along-californias-sierra-nevada-green-glaciers-hold-a-key-to-forest-health\">originally aired on KVPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you think of a meadow, you might picture a field of flowers straight out of a postcard, no trees in sight. But meadows are also key to forest health. And in the Sierra Nevada, most of the meadows that play this role have been degraded or lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to restore these ecosystems, some groups say we must adopt the mindset of small creatures, like rodents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Swift, owner of Swift Water Design, has dedicated his career to restoring meadows in the Sierra Nevada — specifically one a few miles above Shaver Lake called the Lower Grouse Meadow, which was severely affected by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11836958/california-sets-record-with-2m-acres-burned-so-far-this-year\">the 2020 Creek Fire\u003c/a>. As a result of the fire, that area is surrounded by barren hillsides and blackened, charred pine trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11644304,news_11933052 label='Fire Restoration in the Sierras']But here, in this meadow just above Shaver Lake, gravel and desiccated tree bark give way to tall grasses, purple wildflowers and buzzing pollinators. Like a strip of black-and-white film that’s been colorized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swift and his team managed to restore this meadow by building small dams along a stream — replicating what animals would have done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make dams, he says, think: “dirt lasagna.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a straightforward process involving layers of branches and mud, compacted together, mimicking what beavers have been doing for millions of years, Swift says. It’s also what indigenous people had been doing for centuries as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water is the beating heart of a meadow, and dams, whether built by beavers or humans, create mini wetlands. These wetlands slow erosion, support wildlife and serve as natural firebreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we want groundwater to rise up, we want surface water to spread out and we want the whole water to be backed up to create, we like to call them, ‘green glaciers,’” said Karen Pope, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pope was curious to know how many meadows there are in the Sierra. So she and other ecologists taught computers how to find them from satellite images. The algorithm uncovered thousands, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/psw/news/releases/machine-learning-promotes-meadow-restoration\">covering three times more land than previously known\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But most are in bad shape — overgrown, obliterated by wildfire, or damaged due to mining and other industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“About 5% are actually functioning in any proper sustainable way, productive way. So clearly we have a large task ahead of us,” said Dean Gould, Sierra National Forest Supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meadows, it turns out, have significant environmental value. They can help mitigate climate change, according to Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Recovering meadows sequester carbon, and they can sequester up to six times more than the surrounding forest,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meadows in the midsummer are also a critical habitat for endangered animals, like the Great Gray Owl and the Greater Sandhill Cranes, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd591300.pdf\">the U.S. Forest Service (PDF)\u003c/a>. In the summer, healthy meadows are like natural sponges that soak up spring snowmelt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further, meadows hold cultural importance to indigenous communities and have served as gathering sites for thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Karen Pope, US Forest Service\"]‘I have to admit that this is the most exciting work I’ve ever done.’[/pullquote]Pope is optimistic about the restoration of the Sierran meadows. She recently co-founded a group called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.slobeaverbrigade.com/2022/05/16/california-process-based-restoration-network/\">California Process-Based Restoration Network\u003c/a> to promote this work, and many individuals have joined the cause. She believes that the small pilot meadow off Highway 168, where Swift has been working, exemplifies what’s achievable and how restoring meadows can benefit the entire Sierra region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to admit that this is the most exciting work I’ve ever done. It absolutely makes me feel like I’m not just doing research but actually doing something to help,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swift’s work to restore the Lower Grouse Meadow was contracted by the U.S. Forest Service, underscoring its importance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s passionate about the work, even though witnessing so much degraded land can be emotionally taxing. “I tell everybody, if there’s another way you can make a living, do that, because this is hard on the soul,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, as he watches a tiny frog disappear into the stream, he adds, “Or it is until you see a meadow like this recover. Then it’s easy again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story aired \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11960944/restoring-meadows-in-sierra-nevada-a-key-to-healthy-ecosystems\">on The California Report \u003c/a>— and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvpr.org/local-news/2023-08-25/in-a-burn-scar-along-californias-sierra-nevada-green-glaciers-hold-a-key-to-forest-health\">originally aired on KVPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When you think of a meadow, you might picture a field of flowers straight out of a postcard, no trees in sight. But meadows are also key to forest health. And in the Sierra Nevada, most of the meadows that play this role have been degraded or lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to restore these ecosystems, some groups say we must adopt the mindset of small creatures, like rodents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kevin Swift, owner of Swift Water Design, has dedicated his career to restoring meadows in the Sierra Nevada — specifically one a few miles above Shaver Lake called the Lower Grouse Meadow, which was severely affected by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11836958/california-sets-record-with-2m-acres-burned-so-far-this-year\">the 2020 Creek Fire\u003c/a>. As a result of the fire, that area is surrounded by barren hillsides and blackened, charred pine trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But here, in this meadow just above Shaver Lake, gravel and desiccated tree bark give way to tall grasses, purple wildflowers and buzzing pollinators. Like a strip of black-and-white film that’s been colorized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swift and his team managed to restore this meadow by building small dams along a stream — replicating what animals would have done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make dams, he says, think: “dirt lasagna.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a straightforward process involving layers of branches and mud, compacted together, mimicking what beavers have been doing for millions of years, Swift says. It’s also what indigenous people had been doing for centuries as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water is the beating heart of a meadow, and dams, whether built by beavers or humans, create mini wetlands. These wetlands slow erosion, support wildlife and serve as natural firebreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we want groundwater to rise up, we want surface water to spread out and we want the whole water to be backed up to create, we like to call them, ‘green glaciers,’” said Karen Pope, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pope was curious to know how many meadows there are in the Sierra. So she and other ecologists taught computers how to find them from satellite images. The algorithm uncovered thousands, \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/psw/news/releases/machine-learning-promotes-meadow-restoration\">covering three times more land than previously known\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But most are in bad shape — overgrown, obliterated by wildfire, or damaged due to mining and other industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“About 5% are actually functioning in any proper sustainable way, productive way. So clearly we have a large task ahead of us,” said Dean Gould, Sierra National Forest Supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meadows, it turns out, have significant environmental value. They can help mitigate climate change, according to Pope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Recovering meadows sequester carbon, and they can sequester up to six times more than the surrounding forest,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meadows in the midsummer are also a critical habitat for endangered animals, like the Great Gray Owl and the Greater Sandhill Cranes, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd591300.pdf\">the U.S. Forest Service (PDF)\u003c/a>. In the summer, healthy meadows are like natural sponges that soak up spring snowmelt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further, meadows hold cultural importance to indigenous communities and have served as gathering sites for thousands of Native Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Pope is optimistic about the restoration of the Sierran meadows. She recently co-founded a group called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.slobeaverbrigade.com/2022/05/16/california-process-based-restoration-network/\">California Process-Based Restoration Network\u003c/a> to promote this work, and many individuals have joined the cause. She believes that the small pilot meadow off Highway 168, where Swift has been working, exemplifies what’s achievable and how restoring meadows can benefit the entire Sierra region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to admit that this is the most exciting work I’ve ever done. It absolutely makes me feel like I’m not just doing research but actually doing something to help,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Swift’s work to restore the Lower Grouse Meadow was contracted by the U.S. Forest Service, underscoring its importance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s passionate about the work, even though witnessing so much degraded land can be emotionally taxing. “I tell everybody, if there’s another way you can make a living, do that, because this is hard on the soul,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, as he watches a tiny frog disappear into the stream, he adds, “Or it is until you see a meadow like this recover. Then it’s easy again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Standing before a tractor peeking out of a temporary inland sea, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that if you don’t believe in climate change, visit California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People here are quite literally just a stone’s throw away in houses that will likely be underwater in a matter of months,” Newsom said, of homes protected by a threatened levee outside the Kings County town of Corcoran, home to 22,000 people and a prison complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Central Valley counties — Kern, Kings, Fresno and Tulare — are on high alert as the heat melts the southern Sierra’s snowpack, which is at 324% of normal for this date since the state began conducting snow measurements in 1910. The levee protecting Corcoran is in question as the flows push against the structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the governor to be here today lowers the anxiety level in Corcoran,” said Richard Valle, who was born in Corcoran and now represents the town on the Kings County Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tulare County Supervisor Eddie Valero said that in the past few months, in his county, atmospheric river flooding breached canals more than 50 times, swamped more than 640 homes, destroyed 37 houses and restored Tulare Lake — a former inland lake historically dried up and replaced by farmland and cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are tired, homes are gutted, lands aren’t harvestable and the livelihoods of many are at stake,” Valero said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flood risk is expected for the next four months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are now into the next phase of the winter-of-2023 storm event and flood emergency, and that is planning for a historic snowmelt season,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Eddie Valero, Tulare County supervisor\"]‘People are tired, homes are gutted, lands aren’t harvestable and the livelihoods of many are at stake.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nearly statewide heat wave is expected to bring 90-degree temperatures to inland California, which will begin to melt the massive snowpack — record-breaking in the southern Sierra Nevada — and flow into rivers and reservoirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The flows have the potential to flood mountain and valley communities; the bounds of Tulare Lake will likely only grow more prominent. In response, state and local governments are taking action to build up levees where possible, modeling how runoff will flow into the valley and taking every chance to protect people in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, the state’s climatologist, said one of the big reasons the big melt will likely occur is because temperatures at night are supposed to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Towards the end of the week, we’re gonna see things warm up, and warmer outcomes mean more snowmelt,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just how much snow will melt is determined by the sun’s angle, the length of the day and how much radiation makes it into the snowpack, Anderson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This week is just going to get progressively worse and then maybe relent a bit the following week,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. “The problem is there’s nowhere else for this water to go, and the Tulare Lake basin is just going to fill up like a bathtub.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is running models to see what the impact of snowmelt might be like in places like the Tulare Lake basin, said Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communications and media relations for the state Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), at a media briefing Monday.[aside label='More on the Environment' tag='environment']“There’s water jujitsu happening,” he said. “Flowing with the water to put it where it needs to be, but also understanding what are the emergency protective measures we as a state along with our local and federal counterparts can do to help protect these communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferguson said as the rate of flood risk speeds up, the state is prioritizing public safety. It is approaching the crisis from a regional perspective since four counties have the potential to flood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot dig our way out of this,” he said. “We just need to be smart about the steps we can take holistically to protect as many people as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is also paying close attention to public infrastructure in the path of floodwaters — things like sewers, hospitals, nursing homes and prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to have a challenging few weeks to come, but one of the things that we continue to be impressed with is the ability of Californians to come together during these challenging times,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A flooding resource center is now open in the community of Farmersville, and mobile units will be dispatched across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Central Valley counties Kern, Kings, Fresno and Tulare are on high alert as the heat melts the southern Sierra's snowpack, causing flood risks that will be expected over the next four months.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Standing before a tractor peeking out of a temporary inland sea, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that if you don’t believe in climate change, visit California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People here are quite literally just a stone’s throw away in houses that will likely be underwater in a matter of months,” Newsom said, of homes protected by a threatened levee outside the Kings County town of Corcoran, home to 22,000 people and a prison complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Central Valley counties — Kern, Kings, Fresno and Tulare — are on high alert as the heat melts the southern Sierra’s snowpack, which is at 324% of normal for this date since the state began conducting snow measurements in 1910. The levee protecting Corcoran is in question as the flows push against the structure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the governor to be here today lowers the anxiety level in Corcoran,” said Richard Valle, who was born in Corcoran and now represents the town on the Kings County Board of Supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tulare County Supervisor Eddie Valero said that in the past few months, in his county, atmospheric river flooding breached canals more than 50 times, swamped more than 640 homes, destroyed 37 houses and restored Tulare Lake — a former inland lake historically dried up and replaced by farmland and cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People are tired, homes are gutted, lands aren’t harvestable and the livelihoods of many are at stake,” Valero said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flood risk is expected for the next four months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are now into the next phase of the winter-of-2023 storm event and flood emergency, and that is planning for a historic snowmelt season,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nearly statewide heat wave is expected to bring 90-degree temperatures to inland California, which will begin to melt the massive snowpack — record-breaking in the southern Sierra Nevada — and flow into rivers and reservoirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The flows have the potential to flood mountain and valley communities; the bounds of Tulare Lake will likely only grow more prominent. In response, state and local governments are taking action to build up levees where possible, modeling how runoff will flow into the valley and taking every chance to protect people in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Anderson, the state’s climatologist, said one of the big reasons the big melt will likely occur is because temperatures at night are supposed to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Towards the end of the week, we’re gonna see things warm up, and warmer outcomes mean more snowmelt,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just how much snow will melt is determined by the sun’s angle, the length of the day and how much radiation makes it into the snowpack, Anderson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This week is just going to get progressively worse and then maybe relent a bit the following week,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. “The problem is there’s nowhere else for this water to go, and the Tulare Lake basin is just going to fill up like a bathtub.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state is running models to see what the impact of snowmelt might be like in places like the Tulare Lake basin, said Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communications and media relations for the state Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), at a media briefing Monday.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“There’s water jujitsu happening,” he said. “Flowing with the water to put it where it needs to be, but also understanding what are the emergency protective measures we as a state along with our local and federal counterparts can do to help protect these communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferguson said as the rate of flood risk speeds up, the state is prioritizing public safety. It is approaching the crisis from a regional perspective since four counties have the potential to flood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot dig our way out of this,” he said. “We just need to be smart about the steps we can take holistically to protect as many people as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is also paying close attention to public infrastructure in the path of floodwaters — things like sewers, hospitals, nursing homes and prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to have a challenging few weeks to come, but one of the things that we continue to be impressed with is the ability of Californians to come together during these challenging times,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A flooding resource center is now open in the community of Farmersville, and mobile units will be dispatched across the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Dry Winter: These Satellite Photos Show How Sierra Snowpack Compares to Last Year",
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"content": "\u003cp>After a snow-packed winter of 2019, there are signs that this year’s Sierra Nevada snow season could wind up below average. At the start of 2020, the statewide snowpack was 90% of normal for the time of year. That level dropped to 72% at the end of January and is now at 64% . State water officials say our reservoirs have plenty of water now — but we’ll need more winter storms to replenish the snowpack in time for the spring runoff. The forecast for the Lake Tahoe area, at least for the next 10 days, calls for mostly sunny skies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at how this snow season is stacking up. Move the sliders below to compare the terrain between February 2019 and February 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Southern Sierra\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Feb. 6, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=e928a318-4f97-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Mono Lake\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 27, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7bc08df2-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Sierra Nevada\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 24, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 4, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=df63a754-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After a snow-packed winter of 2019, there are signs that this year’s Sierra Nevada snow season could wind up below average. At the start of 2020, the statewide snowpack was 90% of normal for the time of year. That level dropped to 72% at the end of January and is now at 64% . State water officials say our reservoirs have plenty of water now — but we’ll need more winter storms to replenish the snowpack in time for the spring runoff. The forecast for the Lake Tahoe area, at least for the next 10 days, calls for mostly sunny skies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a look at how this snow season is stacking up. Move the sliders below to compare the terrain between February 2019 and February 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Southern Sierra\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Feb. 6, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=e928a318-4f97-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Mono Lake\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 27, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 1, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=7bc08df2-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"1\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\">\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Sierra Nevada\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nBefore: Jan. 24, 2019\u003cbr>\nAfter: Feb. 4, 2020\u003c/p>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd width=\"100%\" height=\"750\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"750\" scrolling=\"no\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" src=\"https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=df63a754-490e-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1947420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-1020x1019.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"209\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-1020x1019.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-160x160.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-800x799.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-768x767.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo.png 1116w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\">\u003c/a>But some trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists are racing to collect them and other species around the globe in the hope that these “climate survivors” may have a natural advantage, allowing them to cope with a warming world a bit better than others in their species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Patricia Maloney, a UC Davis forest and conservation biologist, hunts for these survivors. Most people focus on the dead trees, their brown pine needles standing out against the glittering blue of the lake. But Maloney tends not to notice them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I look for the good,” she said. “Like in people, you look for the good, not the bad. I do the same in forest systems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maloney studies sugar pines, a tree John Muir once called the “king” of conifers. “They have these huge, beautiful cones,” Maloney said. “They’re stunning trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sugar pines on these slopes endured some of the worst water stress in the region. Winter snowpack melts earliest on south-facing slopes, leaving the trees with little soil moisture over the summer. That opens the door for the trees’ tiny nemesis, which would deal the fatal blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"left\" citation=\"Steve Palumbi, Stanford\"]‘Evolution is a tool that we can bring to bear in helping us get through this future.’[/pullquote]“Here you have some really good mountain pine beetle galleries,” Maloney said, as she peeled the bark off a dead sugar pine to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR5O48zsbnc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">show winding channels eaten into the wood\u003c/a>. “Like little beetle highways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pine beetle outbreaks are a normal occurrence in the Sierra. As the beetles try to bore into the bark, pine trees can usually fight them off by spewing a sticky, gummy resin, entrapping the insects. But trees need water to make resin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tank ran dry, and they weren’t able to mobilize any sort of resin,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But next to this dead tree, Maloney points to one towering above, with healthy green pine needles. Somehow, it was able to fight the beetles off and survive the drought. As she’s found more and more of these survivors, Maloney has studied them, trying to figure out what their secret is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we found is that the ones that were green, like this one, were more water-use efficient than their dead counterparts,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947800\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 515px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1947800\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-800x666.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-800x666.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-768x639.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain pine beetle larvae leave holes in sugar pine bark after emerging. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the survivors had an innate ability to do more with less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual members of any species can vary dramatically, something tied to genetic differences. That diversity comes in handy when environmental conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drought, heat and beetle outbreaks in recent years put extreme pressure on sugar pines, creating a natural experiment that weeded out all but the toughest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think what we’re seeing is contemporary natural selection,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she’s trying to ensure their descendents survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside a greenhouse at her Tahoe City field station, Maloney showed off a sea of young green trees in their own containers. These 10,000 sugar pine seedlings grew from seeds Maloney and her team collected from 100 of the surviving sugar pines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next year, these young trees will be replanted around Lake Tahoe, both on national forest and private land. The hope is the trees, due to their genetics, will be better able to handle a warming climate, more extreme droughts and more frequent beetle outbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These survivors matter,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She plans to study the genetics of these trees as they grow, research that could help in other climate-threatened forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947799\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1947799\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-800x481.jpg\" alt=\"Patricia Maloney next to a dead sugar pine on Lake Tahoe.\" width=\"800\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-800x481.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-1020x613.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-1200x721.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney.jpg 1900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patricia Maloney next to a dead sugar pine on Lake Tahoe. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Coral Survivors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maloney’s not alone in searching for species that can handle the warming climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steve Palumbi, a biology professor at Stanford University, has been \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/259609055\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">looking for coral that can handle heat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Evolution is a tool that we can bring to bear in helping us get through this future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coral reefs are bleaching and dying as oceans warm, so Palumbi is growing surviving corals in the hope they can build new reefs, full of “super corals.” Reefs aren’t just tourist attractions, he says. They’re also biodiversity hotspots that protect coastlines from flooding by absorbing wave energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it gives us another decade, if it gives us another two generations, that’ll be good, we’ll take it,” he said. “I see these next 80 years as the time where we have to save as much as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond that, it gets trickier, given the rate the climate is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The question in the future is: When the environment changes and it changes really fast, can these populations keep up? How fast can they adapt? How much help will they give us in keeping those ecosystems going?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palumbi says, ultimately, the best solution for these species is for humans to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, scientists are trying to buy them a little more time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1947420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-1020x1019.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"209\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-1020x1019.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-160x160.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-800x799.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo-768x767.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/Covering-Climate-Now-Logo.png 1116w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 209px) 100vw, 209px\">\u003c/a>But some trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists are racing to collect them and other species around the globe in the hope that these “climate survivors” may have a natural advantage, allowing them to cope with a warming world a bit better than others in their species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Patricia Maloney, a UC Davis forest and conservation biologist, hunts for these survivors. Most people focus on the dead trees, their brown pine needles standing out against the glittering blue of the lake. But Maloney tends not to notice them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I look for the good,” she said. “Like in people, you look for the good, not the bad. I do the same in forest systems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maloney studies sugar pines, a tree John Muir once called the “king” of conifers. “They have these huge, beautiful cones,” Maloney said. “They’re stunning trees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sugar pines on these slopes endured some of the worst water stress in the region. Winter snowpack melts earliest on south-facing slopes, leaving the trees with little soil moisture over the summer. That opens the door for the trees’ tiny nemesis, which would deal the fatal blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Here you have some really good mountain pine beetle galleries,” Maloney said, as she peeled the bark off a dead sugar pine to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR5O48zsbnc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">show winding channels eaten into the wood\u003c/a>. “Like little beetle highways.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pine beetle outbreaks are a normal occurrence in the Sierra. As the beetles try to bore into the bark, pine trees can usually fight them off by spewing a sticky, gummy resin, entrapping the insects. But trees need water to make resin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The tank ran dry, and they weren’t able to mobilize any sort of resin,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But next to this dead tree, Maloney points to one towering above, with healthy green pine needles. Somehow, it was able to fight the beetles off and survive the drought. As she’s found more and more of these survivors, Maloney has studied them, trying to figure out what their secret is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we found is that the ones that were green, like this one, were more water-use efficient than their dead counterparts,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947800\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 515px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1947800\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-800x666.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-800x666.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle-768x639.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/pine-beetle.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain pine beetle larvae leave holes in sugar pine bark after emerging. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In other words, the survivors had an innate ability to do more with less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual members of any species can vary dramatically, something tied to genetic differences. That diversity comes in handy when environmental conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drought, heat and beetle outbreaks in recent years put extreme pressure on sugar pines, creating a natural experiment that weeded out all but the toughest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think what we’re seeing is contemporary natural selection,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, she’s trying to ensure their descendents survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside a greenhouse at her Tahoe City field station, Maloney showed off a sea of young green trees in their own containers. These 10,000 sugar pine seedlings grew from seeds Maloney and her team collected from 100 of the surviving sugar pines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next year, these young trees will be replanted around Lake Tahoe, both on national forest and private land. The hope is the trees, due to their genetics, will be better able to handle a warming climate, more extreme droughts and more frequent beetle outbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These survivors matter,” Maloney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She plans to study the genetics of these trees as they grow, research that could help in other climate-threatened forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1947799\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1947799\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-800x481.jpg\" alt=\"Patricia Maloney next to a dead sugar pine on Lake Tahoe.\" width=\"800\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-800x481.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-160x96.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-1020x613.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney-1200x721.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/09/patricia-maloney.jpg 1900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patricia Maloney next to a dead sugar pine on Lake Tahoe. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Coral Survivors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maloney’s not alone in searching for species that can handle the warming climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steve Palumbi, a biology professor at Stanford University, has been \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/259609055\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">looking for coral that can handle heat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Evolution is a tool that we can bring to bear in helping us get through this future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coral reefs are bleaching and dying as oceans warm, so Palumbi is growing surviving corals in the hope they can build new reefs, full of “super corals.” Reefs aren’t just tourist attractions, he says. They’re also biodiversity hotspots that protect coastlines from flooding by absorbing wave energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it gives us another decade, if it gives us another two generations, that’ll be good, we’ll take it,” he said. “I see these next 80 years as the time where we have to save as much as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond that, it gets trickier, given the rate the climate is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The question in the future is: When the environment changes and it changes really fast, can these populations keep up? How fast can they adapt? How much help will they give us in keeping those ecosystems going?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Palumbi says, ultimately, the best solution for these species is for humans to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, scientists are trying to buy them a little more time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Monster Snow Year ... 'It's Been a Wild Ride'",
"headTitle": "California’s Monster Snow Year … ‘It’s Been a Wild Ride’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>It’s been a beast of a year for snow in the Sierra Nevada range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the time of year—April 1—when the snowpack is typically at its peak and on Tuesday, the monthly manual survey revealed a \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snowpack at 162 percent\u003c/a> of the long-term average, thanks to more than 30 atmospheric river storms that swept across the state over the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Ski slopes are still expecting to be open this summer on the 4th of July.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Mammoth Mountain, which soars to 11,000 feet in the central Sierra, has had 50 feet of snow pile onto its sweeping inclines. The nearby Mammoth ski resort tweeted that it had broken its snowfall record for February—and it was only two weeks into the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely fantastic,” is how Ben Hatchett sums up the snow season. Hatchett is an atmospheric scientist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, but he’ll rhapsodize at length about how the storm sequence lined up to produce a “dream season” on the slopes, with few intermittent melts and little rain at high elevations to create the fabled “Sierra cement” snow conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/k0oS7/7/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never got those storms that end and then the sun comes out and it goes to 42 degrees, and everything gets cooked,” Hatchett recalls. “It just really stayed incredible for what we were hoping would be days, but then turned into weeks and then even to months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a wild ride,” admits Lara Kaylor, who works in the tourism office in Mammoth Lakes. She lives in a lower-elevation part of town, known locally as the Banana Belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our snow banks are probably only about 20 feet high,” she muses, “versus 40 to 50 feet high.” And she’s not kidding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaylor says some extra snow shoveling is a fair trade-off for the obvious benefits. Tax collections from the tourist economy have already topped $3 million in the town of Mammoth Lakes, setting a local record. The town is nestled just below California’s highest ski slopes, which are projected to be open on the Fourth of July this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to people that you can come and ski in June,” says Kaylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939793\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\" alt=\"Photo: snow piled on tables\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1200x801.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tabletops outside of Smokeyard Restaurant in the Village at Mammoth. \u003ccite>(Mammoth Lakes Tourism/Dakota Snider)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The string of cold storms was also a boon to California’s water supply, increasing snow cover even at lower elevations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had such low [elevation] snow levels that we were able to accumulate snow over a humongous area of the Sierra Nevada,” notes Hatchett. “There’s a snowpack at two-or-three-thousand feet this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians count on Sierra snow for about a third of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For flood managers, though, it’s right on the brink of having too much of a good thing. An abrupt warm-up at this point could melt much of that accumulated snow and send it cascading into reservoirs that are \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">already brimming\u003c/a>—or at least at the point where operators are required to start releasing water to maintain room for flood control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a pulse of runoff two years ago that caused the collapse of both the primary and emergency spillways at Oroville Dam in Butte County. The state’s Department of Water Resources says \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11735564/oroville-dams-rebuilt-spillway-is-nearing-its-first-use-since-2017-disaster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first test\u003c/a> of the newly rebuilt spillway could come as early as this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Hatchett says that, unlike the winter just passed, the outlook for this spring is for above-average temperatures throughout most of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The year's biggest snowpack survey is tomorrow, and state officials are expecting to find near-record numbers. 4th of July skiing, ample water, big money for resort towns; is there a downside?",
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"description": "The year's biggest snowpack survey is tomorrow, and state officials are expecting to find near-record numbers. 4th of July skiing, ample water, big money for resort towns; is there a downside?",
"title": "California's Monster Snow Year ... 'It's Been a Wild Ride' | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s been a beast of a year for snow in the Sierra Nevada range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the time of year—April 1—when the snowpack is typically at its peak and on Tuesday, the monthly manual survey revealed a \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snowpack at 162 percent\u003c/a> of the long-term average, thanks to more than 30 atmospheric river storms that swept across the state over the winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Ski slopes are still expecting to be open this summer on the 4th of July.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Mammoth Mountain, which soars to 11,000 feet in the central Sierra, has had 50 feet of snow pile onto its sweeping inclines. The nearby Mammoth ski resort tweeted that it had broken its snowfall record for February—and it was only two weeks into the month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely fantastic,” is how Ben Hatchett sums up the snow season. Hatchett is an atmospheric scientist at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, but he’ll rhapsodize at length about how the storm sequence lined up to produce a “dream season” on the slopes, with few intermittent melts and little rain at high elevations to create the fabled “Sierra cement” snow conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/k0oS7/7/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We never got those storms that end and then the sun comes out and it goes to 42 degrees, and everything gets cooked,” Hatchett recalls. “It just really stayed incredible for what we were hoping would be days, but then turned into weeks and then even to months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a wild ride,” admits Lara Kaylor, who works in the tourism office in Mammoth Lakes. She lives in a lower-elevation part of town, known locally as the Banana Belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our snow banks are probably only about 20 feet high,” she muses, “versus 40 to 50 feet high.” And she’s not kidding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaylor says some extra snow shoveling is a fair trade-off for the obvious benefits. Tax collections from the tourist economy have already topped $3 million in the town of Mammoth Lakes, setting a local record. The town is nestled just below California’s highest ski slopes, which are projected to be open on the Fourth of July this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to people that you can come and ski in June,” says Kaylor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1939793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1950px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1939793\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg\" alt=\"Photo: snow piled on tables\" width=\"1950\" height=\"1302\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11.jpeg 1950w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-768x513.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1200x801.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/04/01_2019-02-15-New-Snow-Miles-Weaver-11-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1950px) 100vw, 1950px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tabletops outside of Smokeyard Restaurant in the Village at Mammoth. \u003ccite>(Mammoth Lakes Tourism/Dakota Snider)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The string of cold storms was also a boon to California’s water supply, increasing snow cover even at lower elevations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had such low [elevation] snow levels that we were able to accumulate snow over a humongous area of the Sierra Nevada,” notes Hatchett. “There’s a snowpack at two-or-three-thousand feet this year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Californians count on Sierra snow for about a third of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For flood managers, though, it’s right on the brink of having too much of a good thing. An abrupt warm-up at this point could melt much of that accumulated snow and send it cascading into reservoirs that are \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">already brimming\u003c/a>—or at least at the point where operators are required to start releasing water to maintain room for flood control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was a pulse of runoff two years ago that caused the collapse of both the primary and emergency spillways at Oroville Dam in Butte County. The state’s Department of Water Resources says \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11735564/oroville-dams-rebuilt-spillway-is-nearing-its-first-use-since-2017-disaster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first test\u003c/a> of the newly rebuilt spillway could come as early as this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Hatchett says that, unlike the winter just passed, the outlook for this spring is for above-average temperatures throughout most of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why We Can't Stop Talking About California’s Sierra Snowpack",
"headTitle": "Why We Can’t Stop Talking About California’s Sierra Snowpack | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>It’s not just skiers who have been whipsawed this season between fear of another dry winter and delight over the epic January snowfall in the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also paying close attention: water wonks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? Because melting Sierra snow provides somewhere between one-third and one-half of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://sierranevada.ca.gov/ca-primary-watershed/\">water supply\u003c/a>. What determines just how much water is derived from that snow is called the “snowpack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this week, water stored in accumulated Sierra snows was running just about average for late January, and amounted to about 60 percent of the average on April 1, when the snowpack is typically at its peak for the year. “Average” is good news compared to where things stood less than a month ago, when the snowpack was only about two-thirds of the early-January average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can really make up a lot of ground if we just have a couple of kind of heavy-hitting storms,” says Ben Hatchett, a snow watcher at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. “And we sure did, and the people rejoiced — both at the ski resorts and hopefully at the water management and other agencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So What’s the Snowpack?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The term snowpack refers to the amount of snow on the ground at a given time. When scientists measure snowpack, they’re typically concerned with the Snow Water Equivalent (also known as Snow Water Content). The Snow Water Equivalent is how much water, measured as depth in inches\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>would be produced by melting the snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">Melting Sierra snow provides somewhere between one-third and one-half of California’s water supply.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Thus, the Snow Water Equivalent, or SWE, takes into account a particular snow’s density, and it can vary widely: Colorado’s powder may be luxurious for skiers, but because it’s less dense it contains less water. Meanwhile, the snow that skiers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sierra%20cement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sierra cement\u003c/a>” is much denser and thus full of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Water Resources and other organizations monitor the snowpack by conducting monthly \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snow surveys\u003c/a>, which help inform projections of the state’s \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=WSI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">water supply\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In this video, KQED Science Editor Craig Miller ventures into the Sierra with veteran state surveyor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936327/californias-snow-guru-on-advances-in-snowpack-tech-and-the-future-of-california-water\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Frank Gerhke\u003c/a>, to see how traditional manual snow surveys are taken.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xojdkhJwZxY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Timing: It’s Everything\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Merced hydrology professor Rogers Bales has been studying the Sierra Nevada snowpack for roughly three decades. He says the importance of the snowpack comes down to its functioning as storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of California’s precipitation comes during the cold, wet season when the crops and forests don’t need as much water,” Bales explains. He notes that farmers use \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">80 percent of the state’s water supply\u003c/a>. “[They] need a lot of water in the summer, when there’s very little or no precipitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s where the snow comes in. Its natural ability to store water is why the Sierra snowpack is often referred to as California’s “frozen reservoir.” As spring sets in, the snowpack begins to melt. Water that’s not absorbed into the ground, called“runoff,” trickles into mountain streams, which feed rivers and eventually aqueducts and reservoirs, where it can be stored for use throughout the dry season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So timing is everything when it comes to the melting of the snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want the runoff to be as late as possible, as close to when we need it as possible,” Bales says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Typically, that runoff begins in April, and in wet years, it can continue to flow through August, according to Bales. But in years with less precipitation, and therefore less accumulation of snow, the runoff can wind down as early as May. That leaves farmers with less reserves for those dry summer months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another concern, Bales says, is runoff that comes too early, triggered by warmer temperatures and rains over the mountains during winter months. Runoff occurring before April has the potential to cause flooding downstream. In February 2017, storms caused the equivalent of a full season’s runoff in the Feather River watershed to pour into Oroville Reservoir, in Butte County. Ultimately, attempts to release huge volumes of water through Oroville Dam caused both the main and emergency spillways to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oroville-dam\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">collapse\u003c/a>, forcing evacuation orders for 100,000 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1937431\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1937431\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1020x574.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before and after the snowstorms: satellite images of Sequoia on Jan. 4, 2019 and Jan 23, 2019, after the Sierra Nevada was pummeled with snow. \u003ccite>(Couresty \u003ca href=\"https://www.planet.com/\">Planet\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Future: Warming Temperatures Mean a Smaller Snowpack\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warming climate is already shrinking California’s “frozen reservoir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, temperatures in the mountains are rising, leading to more “rain-on-snow” events, when warming temperatures cause it to rain where there’s already snow on the ground. That accelerates the melt, which produces runoff that’s out of sync with California’s seasonal water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The accepted rule of thumb, according to Bales, is that for every two degrees Celsius (3.6 F) of increased surface temperature, the snowline will rise 1,000 feet in elevation, which makes for a kind of double-whammy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re getting rain instead of snow,” says Bales, “and [the snow is] melting earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not just speculation, according to Alan Rhoades, a climate modeler with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He says that climate change has already begun to impact the Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have had roughly about a one-degree Celsius [1.3 F] increase over the last 50 years in the Western United States in terms of surface temperature.” Rhoades says. “And so the timing [of runoff] has been shifting earlier and earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research conducted by Rhoades and colleagues published in \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL080308\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Geophysical Research Letters\u003c/a> predicts that more than three-quarters of the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada could be gone by the close of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of the \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-017-3606-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate modeling scenarios\u003c/a> that I’ve seen predict about a 30 to 60 percent decline by mid-century in average snowpack in winter months,” Rhoades says. “By the end of the century that\u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GL080308\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> ramps up\u003c/a> to about 70 to 80 percent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1936832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1936832\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-800x389.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-800x389.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-160x78.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-768x373.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-1020x496.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image.png 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-1180x573.png 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-960x466.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-240x117.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-375x182.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-520x253.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate models predict drastic reductions of snowpack in the Western U.S. by the end of the Century. Image from 4th National Climate Assessment. \u003ccite>(Hari Krishnan and Michael Wehner/Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But, Rhoades says, this forecast is not set in stone. His projections are based on a “high-emissions scenario” that contributes to surface warming. In other words, it assumes minimal progress in reducing warming emissions like carbon dioxide and methane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the flipside, if the world succeeds in making drastic cuts in climate emissions, the picture needn’t be so grim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The 2018-19 Season\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half California’s annual precipitation typically falls within three months, from December through February. After an eerily dry November — the first storms didn’t roll in until nearly Thanksgiving — the January storms have more than made up for lost time, with an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1935067/rivers-in-the-sky-what-you-need-to-know-about-atmospheric-river-storms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">atmospheric river storm\u003c/a> dropping several feet of snow on the Sierra and pushing the statewide snowpack to above normal: 103 percent of average, as measured on Jan. 17, versus just 67 percent on Jan. 3.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next snow survey is scheduled for Feb. 1. Despite the good season to date, water wonks and worriers will be keeping a close tab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "If Californians seem obsessed with the volume of snow in the Sierra, there's a good reason.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s not just skiers who have been whipsawed this season between fear of another dry winter and delight over the epic January snowfall in the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also paying close attention: water wonks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why? Because melting Sierra snow provides somewhere between one-third and one-half of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://sierranevada.ca.gov/ca-primary-watershed/\">water supply\u003c/a>. What determines just how much water is derived from that snow is called the “snowpack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this week, water stored in accumulated Sierra snows was running just about average for late January, and amounted to about 60 percent of the average on April 1, when the snowpack is typically at its peak for the year. “Average” is good news compared to where things stood less than a month ago, when the snowpack was only about two-thirds of the early-January average.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can really make up a lot of ground if we just have a couple of kind of heavy-hitting storms,” says Ben Hatchett, a snow watcher at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. “And we sure did, and the people rejoiced — both at the ski resorts and hopefully at the water management and other agencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So What’s the Snowpack?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The term snowpack refers to the amount of snow on the ground at a given time. When scientists measure snowpack, they’re typically concerned with the Snow Water Equivalent (also known as Snow Water Content). The Snow Water Equivalent is how much water, measured as depth in inches\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>would be produced by melting the snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">Melting Sierra snow provides somewhere between one-third and one-half of California’s water supply.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Thus, the Snow Water Equivalent, or SWE, takes into account a particular snow’s density, and it can vary widely: Colorado’s powder may be luxurious for skiers, but because it’s less dense it contains less water. Meanwhile, the snow that skiers call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sierra%20cement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sierra cement\u003c/a>” is much denser and thus full of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Water Resources and other organizations monitor the snowpack by conducting monthly \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snow surveys\u003c/a>, which help inform projections of the state’s \u003ca href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=WSI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">water supply\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In this video, KQED Science Editor Craig Miller ventures into the Sierra with veteran state surveyor \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1936327/californias-snow-guru-on-advances-in-snowpack-tech-and-the-future-of-california-water\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Frank Gerhke\u003c/a>, to see how traditional manual snow surveys are taken.\u003c/em>\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/xojdkhJwZxY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/xojdkhJwZxY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Timing: It’s Everything\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UC Merced hydrology professor Rogers Bales has been studying the Sierra Nevada snowpack for roughly three decades. He says the importance of the snowpack comes down to its functioning as storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of California’s precipitation comes during the cold, wet season when the crops and forests don’t need as much water,” Bales explains. He notes that farmers use \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">80 percent of the state’s water supply\u003c/a>. “[They] need a lot of water in the summer, when there’s very little or no precipitation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s where the snow comes in. Its natural ability to store water is why the Sierra snowpack is often referred to as California’s “frozen reservoir.” As spring sets in, the snowpack begins to melt. Water that’s not absorbed into the ground, called“runoff,” trickles into mountain streams, which feed rivers and eventually aqueducts and reservoirs, where it can be stored for use throughout the dry season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So timing is everything when it comes to the melting of the snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want the runoff to be as late as possible, as close to when we need it as possible,” Bales says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Typically, that runoff begins in April, and in wet years, it can continue to flow through August, according to Bales. But in years with less precipitation, and therefore less accumulation of snow, the runoff can wind down as early as May. That leaves farmers with less reserves for those dry summer months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another concern, Bales says, is runoff that comes too early, triggered by warmer temperatures and rains over the mountains during winter months. Runoff occurring before April has the potential to cause flooding downstream. In February 2017, storms caused the equivalent of a full season’s runoff in the Feather River watershed to pour into Oroville Reservoir, in Butte County. Ultimately, attempts to release huge volumes of water through Oroville Dam caused both the main and emergency spillways to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oroville-dam\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">collapse\u003c/a>, forcing evacuation orders for 100,000 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1937431\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1937431\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1020x574.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Sequoia_190104_190123.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Before and after the snowstorms: satellite images of Sequoia on Jan. 4, 2019 and Jan 23, 2019, after the Sierra Nevada was pummeled with snow. \u003ccite>(Couresty \u003ca href=\"https://www.planet.com/\">Planet\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Future: Warming Temperatures Mean a Smaller Snowpack\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The warming climate is already shrinking California’s “frozen reservoir.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, temperatures in the mountains are rising, leading to more “rain-on-snow” events, when warming temperatures cause it to rain where there’s already snow on the ground. That accelerates the melt, which produces runoff that’s out of sync with California’s seasonal water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The accepted rule of thumb, according to Bales, is that for every two degrees Celsius (3.6 F) of increased surface temperature, the snowline will rise 1,000 feet in elevation, which makes for a kind of double-whammy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re getting rain instead of snow,” says Bales, “and [the snow is] melting earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not just speculation, according to Alan Rhoades, a climate modeler with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He says that climate change has already begun to impact the Sierra snowpack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have had roughly about a one-degree Celsius [1.3 F] increase over the last 50 years in the Western United States in terms of surface temperature.” Rhoades says. “And so the timing [of runoff] has been shifting earlier and earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research conducted by Rhoades and colleagues published in \u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL080308\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Geophysical Research Letters\u003c/a> predicts that more than three-quarters of the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada could be gone by the close of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most of the \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-017-3606-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate modeling scenarios\u003c/a> that I’ve seen predict about a 30 to 60 percent decline by mid-century in average snowpack in winter months,” Rhoades says. “By the end of the century that\u003ca href=\"https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GL080308\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> ramps up\u003c/a> to about 70 to 80 percent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1936832\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1936832\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-800x389.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-800x389.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-160x78.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-768x373.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-1020x496.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image.png 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-1180x573.png 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-960x466.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-240x117.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-375x182.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/image-520x253.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Climate models predict drastic reductions of snowpack in the Western U.S. by the end of the Century. Image from 4th National Climate Assessment. \u003ccite>(Hari Krishnan and Michael Wehner/Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But, Rhoades says, this forecast is not set in stone. His projections are based on a “high-emissions scenario” that contributes to surface warming. In other words, it assumes minimal progress in reducing warming emissions like carbon dioxide and methane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the flipside, if the world succeeds in making drastic cuts in climate emissions, the picture needn’t be so grim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The 2018-19 Season\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half California’s annual precipitation typically falls within three months, from December through February. After an eerily dry November — the first storms didn’t roll in until nearly Thanksgiving — the January storms have more than made up for lost time, with an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1935067/rivers-in-the-sky-what-you-need-to-know-about-atmospheric-river-storms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">atmospheric river storm\u003c/a> dropping several feet of snow on the Sierra and pushing the statewide snowpack to above normal: 103 percent of average, as measured on Jan. 17, versus just 67 percent on Jan. 3.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next snow survey is scheduled for Feb. 1. Despite the good season to date, water wonks and worriers will be keeping a close tab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Indomitable Snowman Talks Snowpack Tech in a Changing Climate",
"headTitle": "California’s Indomitable Snowman Talks Snowpack Tech in a Changing Climate | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Frank Gehrke says that back in Missouri, where he was raised, snow was “something to be plowed.” He would soon take a very different view.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">The \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/airborne-snow-observatory-aso/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airborne Snow Observatory\u003c/a> was a game-changer, says Frank Gehrke, California’s former chief snow surveyor.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In December, Gehrke retired as chief snow surveyor for the California Department of Water Resources. He spent much of his 31 years with the department on skis and snowshoes, in remote corners of the Sierra Nevada, \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measuring the “frozen reservoir”\u003c/a> that ultimately provides about a third of California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also the guy flanking Gov. Jerry Brown in late March of 2015, when there was no snow to measure and Brown announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/28837/record-low-sierra-snowpack-will-drive-home-drought-impacts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sweeping drought measures\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after his retirement, I met Gehrke near his home on the American River, for some reflections. The following is an edited transcript.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s it like not being involved in the snow surveys after all this time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a little bittersweet. But by the same token it’s a relief not to have those worries about what could go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What was it like to see the monthly surveys become a media event?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first came to work for the department in 1987, there would be an occasional call from the media about when we were doing the survey. And then as things evolved in that first five-year drought, I realized that when the media brought their own snowshoes they were serious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1936343\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1936343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: 1958 snow survey\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surveyors using a Mt. Rose snow gauge to measure water content in 1958. Manual surveys are still done the same way. \u003ccite>(Calif. Dept. of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It seems like the technology has really changed since you started in 1987.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well it has, and the real game-changer is what’s known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/airborne-snow-observatory-aso/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airborne Snow Observatory\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>A Disappointing Start\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/KJ_snow_survey_0463_01_03_19.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first manual snow survey of the winter, conducted on Jan. 3, showed water content of the Sierra snowpack at just 67 percent of the long-term average, but that still beats last year at this time, when it was 31 percent of normal. Keep in mind the snowpack water content can change dramatically as the winter months progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>These are guys from NASA basically flying over the mountains in a plane, using light beams to measure the snow?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absolutely. We started that. And that truly has been the huge change in all of the history of snow surveys. Being able to look at this basin-wide snow-water equivalent truly is phenomenal. And because we now can very accurately determine the snow in a basin, then we can start to look at some of the other factors that go into runoff prediction and examine those with the idea that the snow is now a known quantity. We’re not guessing or trying to estimate. We know how much snow is up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How important are these precision measurements?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, they’re hugely important, especially as things are changing. Predictions are for less snow, more rain, so being able to accurately determine where the snow is and how much there is makes a big difference in terms of your modeling for those short-term flood events, and also for more long-term water-supply forecasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s also very important, for example down in the Tuolumne River watershed, where our highest ground-based measurement is at about 10,000 feet. Fully a third of the watershed is above that measurement point. So if you get into a spring situation where the snow has basically melted up to 10,000 feet, you’re flying blind — or you were prior to the Airborne Snow Observatory. And the ability to look at that, especially that late-spring runoff, can be extremely important for determining reservoir levels and managing that reservoir capacity for the benefit of both flood control as well as water supply and hydroelectric and a number of other benefits that you can more accurately monitor the reservoir and make intelligent decisions about releases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/J9tn1/5/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n \u003cstrong>You’ve been doing this over the past 30 years. What changes have you seen in the snowpack?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually not very much. We talk about the seasonal or inter-annual variability.[How California whipsaws between wet and dry years]. And those swings can mask perhaps a longer-term signal that’s in there. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/factpub/sect_4a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snow-course\u003c/a> record, people look at it and they tweak it and some people see a signal, others don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(Editor’s note: Recent scientific \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923700/impact-of-a-warming-climate-on-the-sierra-nevada-and-californias-water\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies have projected\u003c/a> that the Sierra snowpack could shrink by nearly 80 percent by 2100, and timing of the runoff could change dramatically.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Do you worry at all about California’s water future?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now, there is a lot of water in California. But it doesn’t come with the timing and the location of where we as a civilization really want it. That’s where I think technology can do a great deal. We probably aren’t going to be moving more water than we are right now; it’s unlikely we’ll be building any giant new pipelines or something. But what we’ll be able to do is identify where the water is, when it occurs, and improve that accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here in 2019, we don’t know what water the rest of the year is going to bring. And if we could improve that, even a little bit, it would go a long way toward being able to manage what we have right now in terms of physical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>How do they do the manual snow surveys? Find out in this video from 2010, when I trailed Gehrke out to Tamarack Flat in El Dorado County.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xojdkhJwZxY&w=560&h=315]\u003cstrong>Speaking of technology, when does skiing up into a pass and shoving aluminum tubes into the snow to weigh the water content become obsolete?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can see the number of surveys being reduced. But I think, at least for the foreseeable future, they’re still what we use to verify everything else. Even though we have very advanced models, you still need that ground truth to ensure that something hasn’t gone haywire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Frank Gehrke wasn't the only one to plod into mountain meadows to measure the snowpack, but over 31 years he became the face and voice of California's monthly snow surveys.",
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"description": "Frank Gehrke wasn't the only one to plod into mountain meadows to measure the snowpack, but over 31 years he became the face and voice of California's monthly snow surveys.",
"title": "California's Indomitable Snowman Talks Snowpack Tech in a Changing Climate | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Frank Gehrke says that back in Missouri, where he was raised, snow was “something to be plowed.” He would soon take a very different view.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">The \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/airborne-snow-observatory-aso/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airborne Snow Observatory\u003c/a> was a game-changer, says Frank Gehrke, California’s former chief snow surveyor.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In December, Gehrke retired as chief snow surveyor for the California Department of Water Resources. He spent much of his 31 years with the department on skis and snowshoes, in remote corners of the Sierra Nevada, \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Flood-Management/Flood-Data/Snow-Surveys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measuring the “frozen reservoir”\u003c/a> that ultimately provides about a third of California’s water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also the guy flanking Gov. Jerry Brown in late March of 2015, when there was no snow to measure and Brown announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/28837/record-low-sierra-snowpack-will-drive-home-drought-impacts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sweeping drought measures\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after his retirement, I met Gehrke near his home on the American River, for some reflections. The following is an edited transcript.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s it like not being involved in the snow surveys after all this time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a little bittersweet. But by the same token it’s a relief not to have those worries about what could go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What was it like to see the monthly surveys become a media event?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I first came to work for the department in 1987, there would be an occasional call from the media about when we were doing the survey. And then as things evolved in that first five-year drought, I realized that when the media brought their own snowshoes they were serious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1936343\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1936343\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: 1958 snow survey\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-240x135.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-375x211.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/Snow_Sur_215-6_11_14_1958-520x293.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surveyors using a Mt. Rose snow gauge to measure water content in 1958. Manual surveys are still done the same way. \u003ccite>(Calif. Dept. of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It seems like the technology has really changed since you started in 1987.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well it has, and the real game-changer is what’s known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/airborne-snow-observatory-aso/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airborne Snow Observatory\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>A Disappointing Start\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/01/KJ_snow_survey_0463_01_03_19.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The first manual snow survey of the winter, conducted on Jan. 3, showed water content of the Sierra snowpack at just 67 percent of the long-term average, but that still beats last year at this time, when it was 31 percent of normal. Keep in mind the snowpack water content can change dramatically as the winter months progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>These are guys from NASA basically flying over the mountains in a plane, using light beams to measure the snow?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absolutely. We started that. And that truly has been the huge change in all of the history of snow surveys. Being able to look at this basin-wide snow-water equivalent truly is phenomenal. And because we now can very accurately determine the snow in a basin, then we can start to look at some of the other factors that go into runoff prediction and examine those with the idea that the snow is now a known quantity. We’re not guessing or trying to estimate. We know how much snow is up there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How important are these precision measurements?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, they’re hugely important, especially as things are changing. Predictions are for less snow, more rain, so being able to accurately determine where the snow is and how much there is makes a big difference in terms of your modeling for those short-term flood events, and also for more long-term water-supply forecasting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s also very important, for example down in the Tuolumne River watershed, where our highest ground-based measurement is at about 10,000 feet. Fully a third of the watershed is above that measurement point. So if you get into a spring situation where the snow has basically melted up to 10,000 feet, you’re flying blind — or you were prior to the Airborne Snow Observatory. And the ability to look at that, especially that late-spring runoff, can be extremely important for determining reservoir levels and managing that reservoir capacity for the benefit of both flood control as well as water supply and hydroelectric and a number of other benefits that you can more accurately monitor the reservoir and make intelligent decisions about releases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/J9tn1/5/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n \u003cstrong>You’ve been doing this over the past 30 years. What changes have you seen in the snowpack?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually not very much. We talk about the seasonal or inter-annual variability.[How California whipsaws between wet and dry years]. And those swings can mask perhaps a longer-term signal that’s in there. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/factpub/sect_4a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">snow-course\u003c/a> record, people look at it and they tweak it and some people see a signal, others don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>(Editor’s note: Recent scientific \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923700/impact-of-a-warming-climate-on-the-sierra-nevada-and-californias-water\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">studies have projected\u003c/a> that the Sierra snowpack could shrink by nearly 80 percent by 2100, and timing of the runoff could change dramatically.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Do you worry at all about California’s water future?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now, there is a lot of water in California. But it doesn’t come with the timing and the location of where we as a civilization really want it. That’s where I think technology can do a great deal. We probably aren’t going to be moving more water than we are right now; it’s unlikely we’ll be building any giant new pipelines or something. But what we’ll be able to do is identify where the water is, when it occurs, and improve that accuracy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here in 2019, we don’t know what water the rest of the year is going to bring. And if we could improve that, even a little bit, it would go a long way toward being able to manage what we have right now in terms of physical infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>How do they do the manual snow surveys? Find out in this video from 2010, when I trailed Gehrke out to Tamarack Flat in El Dorado County.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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/xojdkhJwZxY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/xojdkhJwZxY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaking of technology, when does skiing up into a pass and shoving aluminum tubes into the snow to weigh the water content become obsolete?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can see the number of surveys being reduced. But I think, at least for the foreseeable future, they’re still what we use to verify everything else. Even though we have very advanced models, you still need that ground truth to ensure that something hasn’t gone haywire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Eldridge Moores: He Looked at a Jumble of Rocks and Saw the Sierra Being Born",
"headTitle": "Eldridge Moores: He Looked at a Jumble of Rocks and Saw the Sierra Being Born | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The new year will mark a half-century since a “seismic” shift in geology unfolded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eldridge Moores was a key thinker in that shift. He died in late October, but the longtime UC Davis professor and field researcher left a permanent mark on geology and a gaping hole in the hearts of those who admired him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moores was known as a man of the field but one of my most indelible memories of Eldridge was in his living room in Davis. Here was this near-octogenarian crawling around on all fours, unrolling giant geological maps, slipping off his shoes to weigh down the corners, then pointing out with obvious enthusiasm that the blue areas were rocks as much as 500 million years old — the oldest rocks in the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1935835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1935835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Moores with map on floor\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Moores in 2017, poring over geology maps in his Davis living room. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Incompetent’ Rock\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I got another dose of that enduring youthfulness two years ago, chasing after him as he led me — at a brisk pace — down to the Yuba River bank. We were in search of the kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1537071/how-incompetent-rock-led-to-the-oroville-dam-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“incompetent” rock\u003c/a> that contributed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1918649/report-long-term-systemic-failure-led-to-oroville-dam-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">catastrophic collapse\u003c/a> of two spillways at Oroville Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can just dig it,” he said, as he hammered away at a patch of rusty-brown, flaky stone. “It’s on its way to becoming dirt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out that weathered rock and rushing water are a poor combination for keeping dams in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from his boundless energy, Moores’ real gift was his vision: his ability to “see” geologic history in a pile of rocks. He was one of the first to look at a jumble of stone and see in that the literal construction of the Sierra Nevada — the forces that made these mountains over hundreds of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPb8GrhWSM&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pillows of Ocean Lava in the Mountains of California\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty-five years ago, author John McPhee trailed Moores around the Sierra for his book “\u003ca href=\"http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/07/05/specials/mcphee-california.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Assembling California\u003c/a>\u003ci>.”\u003c/i> In it, Moores reveals how the Sierra Nevada range didn’t just pop up from the Earth’s crust, as geologists long thought; rather, the building blocks bubbled up from faraway rifts in the ocean floor called “spreading centers,” then transported thousands of miles on moving plates and piled up onto the North American continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March of last year, Moores and I drove into the foothills of Yuba County, where the whole process is laid bare in road cuts along Highway 20. Moores would pull over and dodge the trucks roaring by to show me smooth, black, ocean remnants called \u003ca href=\"https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/glossary/pillow_lava.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pillow lavas\u003c/a> bulging from the hillsides, and vertical layers of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandatlas.org/sheeted-dikes-of-the-troodos-ophiolite/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sheeted dikes\u003c/a>” striping the rock face. Moores is the one who decoded all this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a forensic exercise,” he explained. “You’re dealing with an experiment which you didn’t design and is still going on. And you have no eyewitnesses to the processes when they went on 160 million years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the notion had already been around for a century, the concept of plate tectonics was still a tough sell when Moores began his career in the 1950s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, there was lots of resistance,” Moores recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Seismic Shift\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1969, Neil Armstrong hopped down from his lunar module and declared a “giant leap for mankind.” Later that year, a lesser-known leap occurred when geologists gathered at Pacific Grove’s Asilomar conference center. At Asilomar, scientists began to unpack the mechanics of plate tectonics, the idea that the Earth’s crust is constantly moving, kind of floating around on a molten sea, miles below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a very exciting time. I still get goosebumps even talking about it,” Moores recalled for me in 2017. “A turning point, I think it was, in the plate tectonic revolution, that was the watershed of geology.”\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That “watershed” now informs much of what we know about earthquakes, volcanoes, and how today’s continents were formed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moores would eventually compile an eye-popping resumé: editor of Geology magazine by the 1980s, head of the Geological Society of America in the ’90s, and recipient of numerous awards\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>though some of his early work on tectonics wasn’t universally embraced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That didn’t exactly win over anybody very quickly,” Moores recalled, about an early paper he wrote during that time. “In fact, some people published an article saying, ‘We see no need for this.’ But they were wrong, I think.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Supercontinents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the whole idea of continental drift — that there was one enormous “supercontinent” \u003ca href=\"https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called Pangea\u003c/a> before it broke apart into the half-dozen we know today — got a major boost from Moores’ work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Oskin, who fills Moore’s old seat as chair of the UC Davis geology department, says it was Moores who discovered that rocks in Antarctica were identical to some in the southwestern U.S. That led to defining an even earlier mass, now \u003ca href=\"https://www.burkemuseum.org/geo_history_wa/Dance%20of%20the%20Giant%20Continents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called Rodinia\u003c/a>, that broke up about 700 million years ago and reformed as Pangea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an old saying that every scientific truth goes through three stages,” he told me. “First people say it conflicts with the Bible, [by which he meant conventional scientific views], and then they say it’s been discovered before, and finally they say they always knew it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1935825\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1935825\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Eldridge Moores poses with the reporter.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Couldn’t resist: my selfie with the affable legend. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moores once told McPhee that he saw his work not as a solo but an orchestral piece. At a packed memorial service in November, friends and colleagues called him a “Renaissance man.” True enough: his work on the forces below us earned him a permanent place in the geological renaissance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had all this in my head, and I was so excited at the end of that period, I could not stand still,” he told me.\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eldridge Moores never really could stand still. He died in late October, while leading a group into the Sierra, sharing his vast knowledge and boundless enthusiasm for his rocks, one last time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The new year will mark a half-century since a “seismic” shift in geology unfolded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eldridge Moores was a key thinker in that shift. He died in late October, but the longtime UC Davis professor and field researcher left a permanent mark on geology and a gaping hole in the hearts of those who admired him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moores was known as a man of the field but one of my most indelible memories of Eldridge was in his living room in Davis. Here was this near-octogenarian crawling around on all fours, unrolling giant geological maps, slipping off his shoes to weigh down the corners, then pointing out with obvious enthusiasm that the blue areas were rocks as much as 500 million years old — the oldest rocks in the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1935835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1935835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Moores with map on floor\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6858-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Moores in 2017, poring over geology maps in his Davis living room. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Incompetent’ Rock\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I got another dose of that enduring youthfulness two years ago, chasing after him as he led me — at a brisk pace — down to the Yuba River bank. We were in search of the kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1537071/how-incompetent-rock-led-to-the-oroville-dam-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“incompetent” rock\u003c/a> that contributed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1918649/report-long-term-systemic-failure-led-to-oroville-dam-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">catastrophic collapse\u003c/a> of two spillways at Oroville Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can just dig it,” he said, as he hammered away at a patch of rusty-brown, flaky stone. “It’s on its way to becoming dirt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out that weathered rock and rushing water are a poor combination for keeping dams in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from his boundless energy, Moores’ real gift was his vision: his ability to “see” geologic history in a pile of rocks. He was one of the first to look at a jumble of stone and see in that the literal construction of the Sierra Nevada — the forces that made these mountains over hundreds of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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/hoPb8GrhWSM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/hoPb8GrhWSM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pillows of Ocean Lava in the Mountains of California\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty-five years ago, author John McPhee trailed Moores around the Sierra for his book “\u003ca href=\"http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/07/05/specials/mcphee-california.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Assembling California\u003c/a>\u003ci>.”\u003c/i> In it, Moores reveals how the Sierra Nevada range didn’t just pop up from the Earth’s crust, as geologists long thought; rather, the building blocks bubbled up from faraway rifts in the ocean floor called “spreading centers,” then transported thousands of miles on moving plates and piled up onto the North American continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March of last year, Moores and I drove into the foothills of Yuba County, where the whole process is laid bare in road cuts along Highway 20. Moores would pull over and dodge the trucks roaring by to show me smooth, black, ocean remnants called \u003ca href=\"https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/glossary/pillow_lava.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pillow lavas\u003c/a> bulging from the hillsides, and vertical layers of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.sandatlas.org/sheeted-dikes-of-the-troodos-ophiolite/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sheeted dikes\u003c/a>” striping the rock face. Moores is the one who decoded all this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a forensic exercise,” he explained. “You’re dealing with an experiment which you didn’t design and is still going on. And you have no eyewitnesses to the processes when they went on 160 million years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the notion had already been around for a century, the concept of plate tectonics was still a tough sell when Moores began his career in the 1950s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh, there was lots of resistance,” Moores recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Seismic Shift\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1969, Neil Armstrong hopped down from his lunar module and declared a “giant leap for mankind.” Later that year, a lesser-known leap occurred when geologists gathered at Pacific Grove’s Asilomar conference center. At Asilomar, scientists began to unpack the mechanics of plate tectonics, the idea that the Earth’s crust is constantly moving, kind of floating around on a molten sea, miles below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a very exciting time. I still get goosebumps even talking about it,” Moores recalled for me in 2017. “A turning point, I think it was, in the plate tectonic revolution, that was the watershed of geology.”\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That “watershed” now informs much of what we know about earthquakes, volcanoes, and how today’s continents were formed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moores would eventually compile an eye-popping resumé: editor of Geology magazine by the 1980s, head of the Geological Society of America in the ’90s, and recipient of numerous awards\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>though some of his early work on tectonics wasn’t universally embraced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That didn’t exactly win over anybody very quickly,” Moores recalled, about an early paper he wrote during that time. “In fact, some people published an article saying, ‘We see no need for this.’ But they were wrong, I think.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Supercontinents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the whole idea of continental drift — that there was one enormous “supercontinent” \u003ca href=\"https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called Pangea\u003c/a> before it broke apart into the half-dozen we know today — got a major boost from Moores’ work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Oskin, who fills Moore’s old seat as chair of the UC Davis geology department, says it was Moores who discovered that rocks in Antarctica were identical to some in the southwestern U.S. That led to defining an even earlier mass, now \u003ca href=\"https://www.burkemuseum.org/geo_history_wa/Dance%20of%20the%20Giant%20Continents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called Rodinia\u003c/a>, that broke up about 700 million years ago and reformed as Pangea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an old saying that every scientific truth goes through three stages,” he told me. “First people say it conflicts with the Bible, [by which he meant conventional scientific views], and then they say it’s been discovered before, and finally they say they always knew it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1935825\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1935825\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Eldridge Moores poses with the reporter.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/12/IMG_6887-1-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Couldn’t resist: my selfie with the affable legend. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moores once told McPhee that he saw his work not as a solo but an orchestral piece. At a packed memorial service in November, friends and colleagues called him a “Renaissance man.” True enough: his work on the forces below us earned him a permanent place in the geological renaissance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had all this in my head, and I was so excited at the end of that period, I could not stand still,” he told me.\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eldridge Moores never really could stand still. He died in late October, while leading a group into the Sierra, sharing his vast knowledge and boundless enthusiasm for his rocks, one last time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Comeback for Gray Wolf Hits Farthest Point South",
"headTitle": "California Comeback for Gray Wolf Hits Farthest Point South | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Gray wolves are trekking farther south in California. A 2-year-old female, known as OR-54, recently wandered through Nevada County in the northern Sierra Nevada. Until now, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife had reported wolves only as far south as Lassen County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s made her way all the way down into the Sierra, and that’s so exciting because this is its prime wolf habitat,” said Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s an area that scientists have identified for a long time as being good wolf habitat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘If they see, smell or hear you, they’re probably going to be gone before you see them. Wolves are not dangerous to humans.’\u003ccite>Amaroq Weiss,\u003cbr>\nCenter for Biological Diversity\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The wolf is collared with a GPS transmitter that allowed officials to determine her whereabouts just off Interstate 80, near Boreal Mountain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OR-54 is so named because she was the 54\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> wolf Oregon biologists have radio collared. She’s following in her father’s historic footsteps. Known as \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/03/02/lone-wolf%E2%80%99s-historic-trek-provokes-questions-and-concerns/\">OR-7\u003c/a>, he was the first gray wolf to cross into California from Oregon in almost 90 years. Wolves are \u003ca href=\"https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/conservation/mammals/gray-wolf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a comeback\u003c/a> in the West after they were eradicated by humans during the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1925623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1925623 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-1020x550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-1020x550.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-800x431.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-768x414.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-960x517.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-240x129.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-375x202.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-520x280.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A wolf pup born in 2017 in Lassen County, recorded by a wildlife camera installation. \u003ccite>(U.S. Forest Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The fact that we have wolves coming back to California is a great testament to the federal and state Endangered Species Act protections that have allowed these remarkable species to recover,” Weiss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the second time OR-54 has visited California. She crossed the border in January and stayed until late February. California Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf specialist Kent Laudon said someone outside of Chester, California caught her on video during her first visit. She went home for a few months, and then returned in mid-April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s common for wolves to leave their pack at about her age. When wolves are somewhere between 2 and 3 years old, they make their first solo wilderness outing, likely in search of a mate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, biologists know of six other wolves with radio collars living in either Plumas or Lassen counties. But there could be more that have remained under the radar of biologists. Wolves are very shy animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they see, smell or hear you, they’re probably going to be gone before you see them,” Weiss said. “Wolves are not dangerous to humans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last 100 years, two humans have fallen prey to wolves in all of North America, including Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states. Weiss said it’s questionable whether a wolf actually killed the second person. In contrast, she said about 20 people die annually from encounters with livestock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would be more likely to die from a lightning strike than from a wolf,” Weiss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes more pups arrived in California this spring. Weiss speculated that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11551637/rare-gray-wolf-pups-born-in-california\">Lassen pack\u003c/a> had a litter a few months ago. Wolves usually breed around Valentine’s Day (appropriately enough) and pups arrive around mid-April. She expects pups to emerge from their dens any day now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=135026&inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wolf management plan\u003c/a> estimates that Northern California, not including the Sierra Nevada, could support up to 500 wolves.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A female gray wolf has turned up in Nevada County in California's southernmost wolf sighting yet. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Gray wolves are trekking farther south in California. A 2-year-old female, known as OR-54, recently wandered through Nevada County in the northern Sierra Nevada. Until now, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife had reported wolves only as far south as Lassen County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She’s made her way all the way down into the Sierra, and that’s so exciting because this is its prime wolf habitat,” said Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s an area that scientists have identified for a long time as being good wolf habitat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘If they see, smell or hear you, they’re probably going to be gone before you see them. Wolves are not dangerous to humans.’\u003ccite>Amaroq Weiss,\u003cbr>\nCenter for Biological Diversity\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The wolf is collared with a GPS transmitter that allowed officials to determine her whereabouts just off Interstate 80, near Boreal Mountain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OR-54 is so named because she was the 54\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> wolf Oregon biologists have radio collared. She’s following in her father’s historic footsteps. Known as \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/03/02/lone-wolf%E2%80%99s-historic-trek-provokes-questions-and-concerns/\">OR-7\u003c/a>, he was the first gray wolf to cross into California from Oregon in almost 90 years. Wolves are \u003ca href=\"https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/conservation/mammals/gray-wolf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a comeback\u003c/a> in the West after they were eradicated by humans during the 1920s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1925623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1925623 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-1020x550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-1020x550.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-160x86.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-800x431.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-768x414.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-960x517.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-240x129.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-375x202.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2018/06/WolfPupCorrected-1180x636-520x280.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A wolf pup born in 2017 in Lassen County, recorded by a wildlife camera installation. \u003ccite>(U.S. Forest Service)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The fact that we have wolves coming back to California is a great testament to the federal and state Endangered Species Act protections that have allowed these remarkable species to recover,” Weiss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the second time OR-54 has visited California. She crossed the border in January and stayed until late February. California Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf specialist Kent Laudon said someone outside of Chester, California caught her on video during her first visit. She went home for a few months, and then returned in mid-April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s common for wolves to leave their pack at about her age. When wolves are somewhere between 2 and 3 years old, they make their first solo wilderness outing, likely in search of a mate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, biologists know of six other wolves with radio collars living in either Plumas or Lassen counties. But there could be more that have remained under the radar of biologists. Wolves are very shy animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they see, smell or hear you, they’re probably going to be gone before you see them,” Weiss said. “Wolves are not dangerous to humans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last 100 years, two humans have fallen prey to wolves in all of North America, including Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states. Weiss said it’s questionable whether a wolf actually killed the second person. In contrast, she said about 20 people die annually from encounters with livestock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would be more likely to die from a lightning strike than from a wolf,” Weiss said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes more pups arrived in California this spring. Weiss speculated that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11551637/rare-gray-wolf-pups-born-in-california\">Lassen pack\u003c/a> had a litter a few months ago. Wolves usually breed around Valentine’s Day (appropriately enough) and pups arrive around mid-April. She expects pups to emerge from their dens any day now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=135026&inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wolf management plan\u003c/a> estimates that Northern California, not including the Sierra Nevada, could support up to 500 wolves.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"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.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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},
"radiolab": {
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