![]() “Even though I’m a climate person, I know we’re not going to slow this down in the next 20 years too much,” he said.Īs if wildfires weren’t scary enough on their own, they can also exacerbate power-grid problems. What about reducing climate pollution? It needs to happen, Abatzoglou said, but it’s not an immediate fire solution. When I asked Abatzoglou for his top three wildfire solutions, two of his answers involved more fire: setting “prescribed burns” to clear out vegetation in forests that have grown much too dense after a century of overly aggressive fire suppression, and allowing blazes in remote areas far from homes to burn themselves out - a strategy known as “managed fire.” He’d also like to see more robust funding for people to harden their homes against flames, and to clear excess vegetation from around their properties. ![]() “There’s a lot more of the fire season yet to go, and things are really crispy out there,” Abatzoglou said. And it could be a prelude to the rest of the year. But the Oak fire would have been considered a big one just a few decades ago, according to UC Merced climatologist John Abatzoglou. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate, with one resident of the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Midpines telling my colleagues that as the fire blew up, “it looked like Godzilla over my house.”Įighteen thousand acres isn’t much compared with the record-breaking million acres consumed by 2020’s August Complex fire - or last year’s Dixie fire, which chewed through nearly as much ground. The Oak fire has quickly become the state’s largest blaze of 2022 since igniting Friday, burning more than 18,000 acres near Yosemite National Park and destroying 25 homes. So far in 2022, just 53,000 acres have burned in California - far below the five-year average of 415,000 acres by this point in July.īut we’re now entering one of the most dangerous times of year for fire activity, as heat dries out the already parched landscape. ![]() But they can definitely help - especially with Northern California in the grips of a scorching heat wave, and with the hottest part of the year yet to come for coastal Southern California.Ĭompared with extreme heat - which we can expect to get worse just about every year - wildfire is more of a wild card. None of those steps will eliminate the risks of heat illness or death. It means members of our families, and our neighbors.” Los Angeles residents’ health is at stake,” DWP board President Cynthia McClain-Hill said at Tuesday’s board of commissioners meeting. Closer to home, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is designing a program that would help low-income and elderly customers - and people who depend on electricity for medical equipment - purchase air conditioning units at a low cost. The Biden administration this week launched to share tips on keeping cool and other information to help local officials deal with heat, as Lisa Friedman reports for the New York Times. Government agencies are trying to protect the most vulnerable. As The Times has reported, extreme heat kills more Californians than officials have acknowledged, and global warming is making things worse - especially for people who can’t afford air conditioning. ![]() But shutting off anyone’s power during a heat wave is painful, and potentially lethal. ![]() Chun’s dramatic photos of Shasta Lake, where water levels fell to 38% of capacity last week.Ĭalifornia would resort to intentional outages only to stave off a bigger electric-grid collapse. Kaufman reports in a detailed story for HuffPost.Īnother part of the problem: Intense drought means there’s less water behind dams to spin turbines and generate hydropower. Across the country, the risk of blackouts is frighteningly high as rising temperatures strain electric grids and coal and nuclear power plants shut down, as Alexander C. “We’re as well positioned as we could have hoped to be,” Millar said. But the Independent System Operator can’t guarantee the lights will stay on, especially if the weather gets crazy. ![]()
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