I write from a place of love, but also a place of pain. A place of excruciating unknowing. A place of imagination – imagining the worst, imagining the best, imagining change of a sort I’ve never encountered before in my … Read more
Wildfire, Like Lightning, Can Strike Twice
Thin, glowing traces of lightning passed through the skylight above my bed and circumvented my eyelids to etch their way directly onto my brain as I slept. I awoke with an unpleasant start, my first thought being: this can’t be … Read more
What Happens to Bees After a Fire? It Depends on the Fire.
Bumblebees live in wildly different types of habitats, have unique tastes, and aren’t necessarily the easiest things to track, making it hard to understand how their populations are faring.
Bird Researchers Rescue Generations of Hand-Written Field Notes from Fire’s Path
The Palomarin Field Station of Point Blue Conservation Science, a small outpost of human infrastructure at the southern boundary of Point Reyes National Seashore, has been a home base for bird studies spanning more than 50 years. Generations of researchers … Read more
How to Start Adapting to California’s “Precipitation Whiplash”
Much of California enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate where the weather typically swings like a pendulum from warm, dry summers to cool, wet winters. Year-to-year, this pendulum can swing with great variation. If it doesn’t swing toward rain and snow … Read more
Why We Need to Treat Wildfire as a Public Health Issue in California
Fires are spreading into communities and increasingly affecting large numbers of Californians, sometimes repeatedly.
Can Better Forestry Jobs Prevent Fires and Restore Rural America?
On an unseasonably warm November day in a rural neighborhood in the western Sierra Nevada, men with chainsaws patrol a tree thicket that burned three years ago. One man, whose chaps have torn on his right thigh and whose shirt … Read more
How Does Smoke Affect Wildlife?
With Northern California socked in with heavy smoke, what happened to animals that couldn’t shelter ins
How Fierce Fall and Winter Winds Help Fuel California Fires
It is crucial to understand the role winds play in California fires.
Racial and Ethnic Minorities are More Vulnerable to Wildfires
Some people are more affected by wildfires than others