California wildfires articles

  • California wildfire survivor feels good about helping the survivors of Lahaina wildfires

    It was a productive day -- Jonathan Pehrson had spent it consolidating items in a remote storage unit for things that didn’t fit in the ‘fifth wheel’ that he was renting near Lake Hughes in California. It was early evening nearly four years ago, Aug. 12, 2020, and he was driving home when he realized the clouds in the distance filtering the setting sun was actually smoke from a fire that was well on its way to destroying 31,000 acres of forest and leaving him homeless.
  • Wildfire weather is increasing in California and much of the U.S., report finds

    Wildfire weather has become more frequent in the Western United States over the past five decades, with some of the largest jumps in California, according to a new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on climate change. The report looks at three key weather conditions — heat, dryness and wind — that, when combined, load the dice for wildfires to spread quickly and grow large, said Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior research associate with Climate Central. “We’re really talking...
  • California shifting to warmer, drier weather, but wildfire season still expected to be delayed

    After another rainy winter that dragged into springtime, California is finally moving toward a warmer and drier pattern, with temperatures expected to hit typical highs — or above — for this time of year. "It's feeling kind of spring [or] summery," said Rose Schoenfeld, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard. "We don’t have any rain in our forecast coming up." It's a welcome change for many after multiple spring weekends dampened by storm systems that brought rain, dreary skies and...