Posts Tagged: fires
Opinion
OPINION – As a nearly 30-year career firefighter, responding to countless man-made and natural disasters, I know better than most Californians how crucial stable funding is in our ability to remain fully staffed and prepared at all times. Californians count on our readiness to minimize injury, property damage and loss of life in a crisis. If a dangerous ballot initiative prevails in November, California’s public safety response will be in peril.
Opinion
OPINION – After a big year of action in 2022, our state had some monumental wins in 2023 but also undercut this progress with actions and policies that move us in the opposite direction on environmental protection and climate leadership. In 2023, California’ took two steps forward and one step back.
Experts Expound
The California insurance market is in flux. We asked our Experts to rate, on a scale of one to 10, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s handling of this situation so far.
News
The statistics are terrifying, the damage heartbreaking and California wildfires continue their rampage. “We’re at a pivotal moment in California history as we choose how to spend billions of dollars for climate resilience and wildfire preparation in the state budget,” said state Sen. Henry Stern, chair of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management.
Opinion
OPINION: As currently amended —after months of compromise and negotiations— this bill would create a new Insurance Market Action Plan, or IMAP, designed to increase home insurance availability with better coverage and lower rates, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire damage through home hardening and community mitigation. For many homeowners in high-risk areas, the FAIR Plan is currently the only option for fire insurance.
News
Things are not going well for PG&E. Amid massive blackouts that PG&E has put in place to avoid liability in the event of a wildfire, millions of Californians were left without power — for days at a time in some cases. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has called for a public takeover of PG&E — a move backed by at least two dozen cities — that would reclassify the company as a nonprofit electric and gas cooperative instead of an investor-owned company.
Analysis
On Aug. 6, President Donald Trump made his first Twitter statement on California’s summer fire season, which started on June 1. Unlike his statement on last year’s Wine Country fires, when the president tweeted condolences to victims of the fires and support for the firefighters, Trump used these latest natural disasters to troll California with nonsense.
News
After two weeks straight of heavy smoke blanketing Northern California from multiple wildfires, some residents got a bit of a break this week. Blue skies began to reappear from Sacramento to the Sierra and “good” to “moderate” air quality ratings returned, replacing the previous alarming “unhealthy” ratings.
News
It’s being called the Wine Country Fire, but the fatal October fires that blackened nearly 200,000 acres across Northern California might also be called the Cannabis Country Fire. While most of the coverage has focused on damage to the losses of homes, business structures and the wine industry, marijuana growers were also hit hard.
News
Tens of thousands of acres are in flames across California and thousands of people have been forced to flee as the drought-stricken state fights its way through what could prove to be one of the worst fire seasons in memory. During the past two days, the Clayton fire in Lake County exploded to more than 3,000 acres and only 5 percent containment, burning into historic town of Lower Lake and forcing more than 5,000 people to flee.
Image by Mehaniq
