Nature Magazine – November 29, 2023:The latest issue cover features trails left by satellites, including BlueWalker 3, a prototype communications satellite, as they pass across the sky.
On a dead still November morning in the Sierra Nevada, two researchers walk through a graveyard of giants. Below their feet: a layer of ash and coal. Above their heads: a charnel house of endangered trees.
This is Alder Creek Grove, a once idyllic environment for a majestic and massive specimen: the giant sequoia. It is now a blackened monument to a massive wildfire—and humankind’s far-reaching impact on the environment. But these two researchers have come to do more than pay their respects.
Linnea Hardlund and Alexis Bernal, both of the University of California, Berkeley, are studying the effects of record-breaking fires such as the one that destroyed large swaths of Alder Creek Grove in the hopes that their findings will inform forest management that might preserve giant sequoias for future generations.
So far, those findings are grim: mortality in Alder Creek Grove is near 100 percent. Of the mighty trees that stood watch for thousands of years, only charred skeletons remain. About a century of aggressive fire suppression and a warming, drier climate have created a perfect environment for unprecedented fire.
On August 19, 2020, it came to the Giant Sequoia National Monument. The SQF Complex was two fires—the Castle and Shotgun fires—that burned for more than four months, affecting nearly 175,000 acres. And a preliminary report on the Castle Fire estimated that 10 to 14 percent of all living giant sequoias were destroyed.
Hardlund, who is also at the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, and Bernal fear that, without scientifically informed intervention, such fires will continue to return to the Sierra Nevada—leaving the once proud guardians of the forest a memory and another casualty of our ecological failure.
This $30 million Super Scooper is the only plane in the world that was designed specifically to fight wildfires. The aircraft performs a dangerous dive down to a body of water, scoops up 1,400 gallons of water in 12 seconds, and drops its load of water on raging forest fires. We went inside this massive aircraft to find out how it works, what it takes to fly it, and why it’s considered the most efficient aerial-firefighting aircraft in the world.
1. A raging wildfire in northern California is now the second-largest recorded in state history, officials said.
2. A senior aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned in the wake of a state attorney general’s report that the governor sexually harassed 11 women.
3. The U.S. Senate moved slowly on Sunday toward passing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, held back by one Republican lawmaker who opposed speeding up a vote on the nation’s biggest investment in roads and bridges in decades.
4. Thousands of people have fled their homes on the Greek island of Evia as wildfires burned uncontrolled, with ferries on standby for more evacuations after taking many to safety by sea.
5. Extreme heat waves that previously only struck once every 50 years are now expected to happen once per decade because of global warming, a UN climate science report said.
August 5, 2021: COVID-19 cases, California wildfire, Texas van crash, U.S. landlord groups, Sydney
1. The United States hit a six-month high for new COVID cases with over 100,000 infections reported, according to a Reuters tally.
2. A rapidly spreading wildfire burned homes and forced thousands to evacuate in two heavily wooded counties northeast of Sacramento in Northern California.
3. A van overloaded with 30 people, many of them believed to be illegal immigrants, crashed in southern Texas, killing 10 occupants and critically injuring many of the others, police said.
4. Landlord groups asked a U.S. judge in Washington to immediately lift a new eviction moratorium that was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying the new order was “unlawful”.
5. Sydney reported a record daily number of new coronavirus cases and the state of Victoria announced a one-week lockdown as Australia tried to contain the highly infectious Delta variant.
The state is increasing funding and preventative measures, but it may not be enough. A year after one of the worst wildfire seasons in California’s history, the state is taking more preventive measures to reduce wildfire risks. But experts worry it still doesn’t have the firefighting and land management resources to adequately fight worsening blazes. Photo: Noah Berger/AP
Each year, California and the Southwest break new records for droughts and high temperatures, leading to heat waves, wildfires, and even flooding. Learn how these catastrophes operate together—and how engineers are working on new technologies to help us survive.
Wildfires are a fact of life in California but extent and devastation in the American West feel dramatic this year: More than 5 million areas of uncontrolled fires lead to incredible footage on the news & reports of orange skies in Oakland or San Francisco. The 2020 fire season has broken almost every record in terms of frequency and ferocity. We analyzed several factors like climate change, housing development and fire suppression & management to see what’s behind the largest and most destructive wildfires in the state’s history and what can be done to solve the worsening problem?
More than a dozen wineries in Napa and Sonoma Counties have suffered losses related to recent wildfires in California. WSJ talks to the owner of Castello di Amorosa, whose warehouse of 120,000 bottles of wine was burned to the ground.
Photo: Samuel Corum/AFP
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