The Earth; It's the only one we have
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 26 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02367-1
Growing wildfire threats require governing institutions to adapt their responses for effective management, yet institutional adaptation remains unexplored. This study reveals increasingly complex task environments for institutions managing wildfire incidents in the USA over the period 1999–2020.
Nature Climate Change…
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For weeks, smoke from Canadian wildfires has poured down into the United States, drifting clear across the Atlantic into Europe. Pulmonologist Vivek Balasubramaniam, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noticed more people calling in with asthma symptoms and asking for advice when smoke doused the region in early June.
“Walking outside those days, I mean, you could see the brown-orange discoloration to the air,” he said. “When you’re breathing in, you kind of feel like the air is a little heavier, a little harder to do things.”
Monitoring air quality is key to forecasting and assessing wildfire smoke. Right now, that’s a coordinated effort between federal, state, tribal, and local entities. Federally approved and privately operated monitors …
Five years ago, California was reeling from the Camp Fire, the country’s deadliest wildfire in a century. State lawmakers responded by mandating new building requirements to protect homes in high-risk areas, but by their January 2025 deadline, the department responsible for the rules still hadn’t written them. Then, swaths of Los Angeles went up in flames, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of structures.
In early February, Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, ordered the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, to finish up the long-delayed regulations. Newsom’s executive order also instructed the state fire marshal’s office to create updated fire hazard maps, which hadn’t been redrawn for areas managed by local governments since 2011. These maps inform where the strictest fire-safety regulations will be enforced by placing land in one of three tiers …
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 10 July 2023; doi:10.1038/s41558-023-01726-0
Climate and socioeconomic change are reshaping wildfire patterns and increasing risks globally, leading to potential new conflicts and equity issues. Incorporating justice considerations from different perspectives into integrated wildfire risk management is essential to address these new challenges.
Nature Climate Change…
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 31 October 2022; doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01524-0
El Niño enhances wildfire emissions
Nature Climate Change…