Wildfires

A new report from a prisoners’ advocacy group finds Kings and Shasta counties have the state’s highest rates of residents incarcerated for crimes.

It is now accepted that prescribed fire is needed to conserve and restore biodiversity, prevent catastrophic fires, stabilize carbon and promote public health and safety. To address the pace and scale of prescribed fire that is needed, we must invest in careers in prescribed fire.

Cal Fire faces a mental health crisis. As wildfires burn year-round, thousands of overworked California firefighters carry a heavy load of trauma, pain and grief. They leave a fire but the fire never leaves them.

Strong and stoic, a Cal Fire captain fought wildland fires and helped retrieve the bodies of despondent people who had jumped off a remote bridge. When the bridge beckoned him, he couldn’t keep fighting.

“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.

A smoldering crisis has emerged at California’s firefighting agency, Cal Fire.  As blazes intensify and California’s fire season grows longer, firefighters are increasingly fatigued, traumatized and overworked. In her stunning five-month investigation Trial by Fire, CalMatters reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Julie Cart uncovers a severe and unaddressed mental health crisis at Cal Fire.  Despite […]

New rules proposed by California’s Department of Insurance would require insurers to take homeowners’ efforts to reduce wildfire risk into account when setting premiums. But they would still allow non-renewals.

A key advocate left the PG&E wildfire victims fund after he was embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal at Sonoma State University.

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.