Earth Equity News

Huge L.A. Fire Threatens More than 10,000 Homes. By Daniel B. Wood, CSMonitor, August 31, 2009. "With more than 12,500 homes threatened and 6,600 people under evacuation orders, the wildfires now raging east of downtown Los Angeles are threatening to make 2009 a grim fire season for California. Weeks of hot, dry conditions have been exacerbated by the fact that brush and chapparal here has not burned off for 40 to 50 years, compounding the usual, yearly threat... The region's recent drought is a major factor in the fires and spotlights the contribution of long-term climate change across the West -- chiefly hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. The trend toward super hot fires has also been driven by a century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The practice halted the natural eradication of underbrush, which unwittingly increased the primary fuel for megafires."