Download or read book California Burning written by Katherine Blunt and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise – and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history. Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas. California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.
Download or read book Prescribed Burning in California Wildlands Vegetation Management written by Harold Biswell and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harold Biswell's decades of research and field experience were a major factor in developing policies of controlled or prescribed burning, which mimics or reintroduces the natural fire cycle. This comprehensive study introduces the principles and practices of prescribed burning, which apply far beyond California, within a historical and ecological perspective. Available for the first time in paperback, with a new foreword by James Agee, this book places Biswell's study—and his legacy—in the context of recent developments in the field.
Download or read book Religion as We Know It An Origin Story written by Jack Miles and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief, beautiful invitation to the study of religion from a Pulitzer Prize winner. How did our forebears begin to think about religion as a distinct domain, separate from other activities that were once inseparable from it? Starting at the birth of Christianity—a religion inextricably bound to Western thought—Jack Miles reveals how the West’s “common sense” understanding of religion emerged and then changed as insular Europe discovered the rest of the world. In a moving postscript, he shows how this very story continues today in the hearts of individual religious or irreligious men and women.
Download or read book Breathing Fire written by Jaime Lowe and published by MCD. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires. Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire. California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year — fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a rare, illuminating look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting. Lowe’s reporting is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system, and an intimate portrayal of the women of California’s Correctional Camps who put their lives on the line, while imprisoned, to save a state in peril.
Download or read book Fire in California s Ecosystems written by Jan W. van Wagtendonk and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-06-08 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.
Download or read book Introduction to Fire in California written by David Carle and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-08-20 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did the California Indians use fire? David Carle focuses on this fundamental element of the natural world, giving a fascinating and concise view of this complex topic. This clearly written, dramatically illustrated book will help Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land management agencies; explains current policies, and explores many other topics, including the extreme and deadly fire events of 2020 and evidence that climate change is changing the wildfire story in California"--
Download or read book Fire in California s Ecosystems written by Neil G. Sugihara and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-11-29 with total page 613 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on California and issues specific to fire ecology and management in the state's bioregions, this work provides scientific information for use in land restoration and other management decisions made in the field. It introduces the basics of fire ecology, and includes an overview of fire, vegetation and climate in California; and more.
Download or read book I Survived the California Wildfires 2018 I Survived 20 written by Lauren Tarshis and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California continues to be ravaged by devastating wildfires. Lauren Tarshis's heart-pounding story tells of two children who battle the terrifying flames and -- despite the destruction -- find hope in the ashes. The people of Northern California were used to living with the threat of wildfires. But nothing could have prepared them for the devastating 2018 fire season, the deadliest in 100 years and the most destructive in history.In the 20th I Survived book, readers join eleven-year-old Josh as he leaves his New Jersey home for the rural northern California town where his cousins live. Still reeling from the life-changing challenges that propelled him and his mother across the country, Josh struggles to adapt to a more rustic, down-to-earth lifestyle that couldn't be more different from the one he is used to.Josh and his cousin bond over tacos and reptiles and jokes, but on a trip into the nearby forest, they suddenly find themselves in the path of a fast-moving firestorm, a super-heated monster that will soon lay waste to millions of acres of wilderness and -- possibly -- their town. Josh needs to confront the family issues burning him up inside, but first he'll have to survive the flames blazing all around him.
Download or read book Forest Fire Control in Southern California written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Committee Serial No. 14. Hearings were held in Los Angeles, Calif.
Download or read book The Pyrocene written by Stephen J. Pyne and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative rethinking of how humans and fire have evolved together over time—and our responsibility to reorient this relationship before it's too late. The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth's history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly remaking both itself and eventually the world. We developed small guts and big heads by cooking food; we climbed the food chain by cooking landscapes; and now we have become a geologic force by cooking the planet. Some fire uses have been direct: fire applied to convert living landscapes into hunting grounds, forage fields, farms, and pastures. Others have been indirect, through pyrotechnologies that expanded humanity's reach beyond flame's grasp. Still, preindustrial and Indigenous societies largely operated within broad ecological constraints that determined how, and when, living landscapes could be burned. These ancient relationships between humans and fire broke down when people began to burn fossil biomass—lithic landscapes—and humanity's firepower became unbounded. Fire-catalyzed climate change globalized the impacts into a new geologic epoch. The Pleistocene yielded to the Pyrocene. Around fires, across millennia, we have told stories that explained the world and negotiated our place within it. The Pyrocene continues that tradition, describing how we have remade the Earth and how we might recover our responsibilities as keepers of the planetary flame.
Download or read book Forest Fire Laboratory at Riverside and Fire Research in California written by Carl C. Wilson and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need for protection from uncontrolled fire in California was identified by Abbott Kinney, Chairman of the State Board of Forestry, more than 75 years before the construc-tion of the Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory. With the organization of the USDA Forest Service the need for an effective fire protection organization became apparent. In response, a somewhat fragmented research program got under way in the 19 10's. Although the research was successful in reducing fire damage undermost conditions, severe fire years still made it clear that a strong cohesive fire research effort, headquartered at an adequate laboratory was necessary. However, the Fire Laboratory did not "just happen." It was the result of considerable organized public and private support. During the 50 years prior to the dedication of the Laboratory, and the 25 years since, there has been an effort to balance a pragmatic approach toward dealing directly with the fire manager, and also maintaining scientific excellence. There are currently six research projects at the Laboratory with emphases on fire management and the beneficial use of fire, forest recreation, effects of air pollution on forest ecosystem, and watershed management
Download or read book Paradise written by Lizzie Johnson and published by Crown Publishing Group (NY). This book was released on 2021 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The definitive firsthand account of California's Camp Fire-the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century-and a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds ... A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again"--
Download or read book Implications of the California Wildfires for Health Communities and Preparedness written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California and other wildfire-prone western states have experienced a substantial increase in the number and intensity of wildfires in recent years. Wildlands and climate experts expect these trends to continue and quite likely to worsen in coming years. Wildfires and other disasters can be particularly devastating for vulnerable communities. Members of these communities tend to experience worse health outcomes from disasters, have fewer resources for responding and rebuilding, and receive less assistance from state, local, and federal agencies. Because burning wood releases particulate matter and other toxicants, the health effects of wildfires extend well beyond burns. In addition, deposition of toxicants in soil and water can result in chronic as well as acute exposures. On June 4-5, 2019, four different entities within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop titled Implications of the California Wildfires for Health, Communities, and Preparedness at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. The workshop explored the population health, environmental health, emergency preparedness, and health equity consequences of increasingly strong and numerous wildfires, particularly in California. This publication is a summary of the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
Download or read book Song for the Blue Ocean written by Carl Safina and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author's exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea's abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world's changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.
Download or read book Pamphlets on Forestry in California written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book California Safety News written by California. Division of Industrial Safety and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fire in Paradise An American Tragedy written by Dani Anguiano and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century. On November 8, 2018, the ferocious Camp Fire razed nearly every home in Paradise, California, and killed at least 85 people. Journalists Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano reported on Paradise from the day the fire began and conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Fire in Paradise is their dramatic narrative of the disaster and an unforgettable story of an American town at the forefront of the climate emergency.
