Posts Tagged: fire

News

Science: Companies in legal scrapes turn to Menlo Park firm

Illustration: Quentin Lueninghoener, FairWarning

FairWarning: The formula has turned the firm, now named Exponent, Inc., into a publicly traded giant in litigation defense and regulatory science. It’s a go-to destination for major industries with liability problems – even as it is derided by critics as a hired gun whose findings are for sale.

News

Lawmaker backs executive director in Coastal Commission dispute

The coast at La Jolla. Photo: Dancestrokes)

A North Coast lawmaker has come to the defense of Charles Lester, the executive director of the California Coastal Commission who has come under fire from a number of commissioners seeking his ouster at the panel’s meeting next month in Moro Bay.

News

Forest health includes fighting fire with fire

The Lime Complex fire in Northern California's Trinity Mountains. (Photo: Paul Higley)

Analysis: California forests are threatened by a maelstrom of environmental drivers of change, which have intensified across four years of drought. Horrific recent events should inspire reform of not only wildfire management, but also of our overall forest-health stewardship and governance. We need a new vision for managing our wildlands with policies based on science and acting in the interest of the greatest public good.

News

Firefighting tab at $133 million

From last year's fire season,, and aerial view in Mendocino County's Lodge Fire. (Photo: N.F. Photography)

California has spent $133 million fighting wildfires since July 1, about a third of its budgeted amount. The figure includes the costs of suppressing major blazes across the heat- and drought-ravaged state during the past month. The state has fought about 4,500 fires since January.

News

Firefighters to drones: Buzz off

A drone and its master. (Photo: Ahturner)

Efforts to contain a July 12 brush fire in San Bernardino County were delayed for eight crucial minutes after response crews spotted a hobbyist’s drone flying close to the fire area. The drone, which US Forest Service officials suspect may have been recording footage of the fire, eventually flew off, allowing grounded air crews to resume. For firefighters, those lost minutes can be devastating as they try to contain a wildfire.

Opinion

Policy change could boost fire risk in furniture

OPINION: For more than 40 years, California pursued a fire safety policy for furniture that recognized the risk presented by smoldering sources (cigarettes) and open flame sources (candles, matches and lighters). Now there has been a radical change in state policy that could result in increased fire deaths, injuries and property damage.

News

State auditor targets PUC’s transportation section

The state Public Utilities Commission’s transportation section has failed to adequately oversee limos, buses, and shuttles, as well as such ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, according to a sharply critical state audit. The report notes that the problems stem from poor leadership and unclear guidelines and procedures

News

Law prevents cuts in retirees’ health care costs

A Senate committee has approved two bills that free the city of Carson and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District from limits in a CalPERS-run health care program, allowing them to make cuts in retiree health costs bargained with labor unions.

The CalPERS program operates under the limits of a state law that can permit new

News

‘Fire tax’ debate heats up

As the weather heats up,  a Capitol debate is heating up, too — on the hotly disputed ‘fire tax.’

 

The $150 annual charge on some 850,000 rural property owners is on the books, despite delays in collections, court action and tens of thousands of complaints from property owners. Republican lawmakers have seized the issue

News

Parcel taxes go front and center

Few issues spark more local controversy than the parcel tax, a levy on property that raises money for specific local programs, such as schools, roads and fire fighting.

 

But their size, scope and purpose vary dramatically. And despite the intense emotions they enflame locally, parcel taxes have rarely hit the state Capitol’s radar —

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