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Image: Unmanned remote wildfire camera owned by State of California., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer
Near Redding, California in Shasta County, the Fawn fire forces four thousand residents to evacuate with 30,000 residents affected. The fire was 50% contained as of Monday afternoon. Law enforcement has now charged a 30-year-old woman named Anna Souverneva with arson, after quarry workers saw her trespassing near the area where the fire beganwith a lighter in her pocket.
As a result of the Fawn Fire, 131 buildings have been destroyed, but hundreds more have been threatened by the blaze. Fourteen arson arrests have been made in Shasta County this year, and103 have been made in California as a whole. According to authorities, it’s possible Souverneva may have also set other fires in Shasta County.
Climate-change deniershave typically used arson as a way of dismissing or diminishing the role of global warming in the explosion of destructive forest fires across the world.Only 7% of blazes in California are the result of arson; moreover, climate change has worsened the impact of human-caused fires. For example, the deadly El Dorado Fire in California last year that was allegedly sparked by a gender reveal party gone wrong, burned over 22,000 acres.
Some good news however: Incoming rain could help firefighters contain this blaze much more quickly.
Mega-storms caused by atmospheric rivers were once thought to be once-in-a-millennia occurrences, but atmospheric rivers are flooding California more frequently due to the warming atmosphere. The latest mega-storm may put a dent in the mega-drought, but experts say California may be trapped in a vicious wet/dry cycle. It may not be time for Californians to build an ark just yet, but climate-resilient infrastructure would […]
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer After a record-breaking drought, much of the West and Southwest has been hoping for a winter of rain. But with scientists predicting a second consecutive winter with La Niña conditions, the dry spell may be prolonged. La Niña is a climate pattern that tends to produce droughts in the […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor As California’s summer fire season comes to a close, autumn’s Santa Ana winds have intensified a fast-moving wildfire now terrorizing Santa Barbara County. The Alisal fire began Monday afternoon. Since then, it has engulfed 16,801 acres and is only 5% contained, according to CalFire. As a result, a portion […]
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