California Wildfires

“I felt trapped.” For months, a firefighter kept reliving her colleagues' screams when a Mendocino County wildfire encircled them. On the day she planned to take her life, she got help instead — just in time.

About 10% of Cal Fire’s workforce quit the agency last year. “We are at critical mass, guaranteed,” one Cal Fire captain said. Workers’ comp cases for PTSD are routinely denied, and many crews are fatigued from working weeks at a time with no time off.

From housing and health to transportation and education, the Legislative Analyst’s Office provides a litany of sobering climate change impacts for California legislators to address as they enact policies and set budgets.

Regulators approved “seriously deficient” fire prevention plans, including from PG&E, which sparked California's deadliest wildfire, state auditor says.

A preliminary estimate shows that the Caldor Fire cost tens of millions in lost economic activity. Wildfires, and the economic disruption they cause, have a large economic impact. But right now, California has a mostly incomplete picture of how much fires cost the state each year.

Fire officials are bracing for the worst as scientists predict that climate change could cause more lightning strikes, which often ignite deadly, unpredictable and remote wildfires in Northern California.

In a year of superlatives, some statistics stand out for California’s 2020 fire year: Four million acres, 112 million tons of greenhouse gases, thousands of lightning strikes, 11 million gallons of fire retardant. And 31 lost lives.

Insurance companies want to factor climate change in calculating wildfire coverage, but consumer watchdogs worry California homeowners will end up with higher premiums. Lawmakers from fire-damaged districts say they are open to change because their constituents are already losing coverage.

Ravaged by wildfire last summer, a state park — and all its redwood forests, creatures and trails — will undergo a transformation. Big Basin Redwoods will be back after a massive rebuilding project. But what will it look like?

1. California widens mental health conditions insurers must cover In the past, state law only required treatment for nine serious mental illnesses. Even before the pandemic, more than half of Californians said most people with mental health conditions couldn’t get the help they needed. Some families even dropped private insurance to qualify for treatment in […]