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Author: Katherine Blunt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593330668
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise – and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history. Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas. California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.
Author: Katherine Blunt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593330668
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Get Book
Book Description
A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise – and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history. Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas. California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.
Author: Harold Biswell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520354060
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Harold Biswell's decades of research and field experience were a major factor in developing policies of controlled or prescribed burning, which mimics or reintroduces the natural fire cycle. This comprehensive study introduces the principles and practices of prescribed burning, which apply far beyond California, within a historical and ecological perspective. Available for the first time in paperback, with a new foreword by James Agee, this book places Biswell's study—and his legacy—in the context of recent developments in the field.
Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33
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Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On November 8, 2018, a transmission tower in Northern California firestorm-like conditions, killing 20 people. #2 Transmission towers, like highways, must be kept separate from one another and from the insulators that support them. If the space between them becomes too small, electricity can jump from wire to wire or wire to tower in a lightning-like strike. #3 Transmission towers, like highways, must be kept separate from one another and from the insulators that support them. If the space between them becomes too small, electricity can jump from wire to wire or wire to tower in a lightning-like strike. #4 Transmission towers, like highways, must be kept separate from one another and from the insulators that support them. If the space between them becomes too small, electricity can jump from wire to wire or wire to tower in a lightning-like strike.
Author: Jaime Lowe
Publisher: MCD
ISBN: 0374721920
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California wildfires. Shawna was overcome by the claustrophobia, the heat, the smoke, the fire, all just down the canyon and up the ravine. She was feeling the adrenaline, but also the terror of doing something for the first time. She knew how to run with a backpack; they had trained her physically. But that’s not training for flames. That’s not live fire. California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year — fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine. She has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program and spoken to captains, family and friends, correctional officers, and camp commanders. The result is a rare, illuminating look at how the fire camps actually operate — a story that encompasses California’s underlying catastrophes of climate change, economic disparity, and historical injustice, but also draws on deeply personal histories, relationships, desires, frustrations, and the emotional and physical intensity of firefighting. Lowe’s reporting is a groundbreaking investigation of the prison system, and an intimate portrayal of the women of California’s Correctional Camps who put their lives on the line, while imprisoned, to save a state in peril.
Author: Jan W. van Wagtendonk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520961919
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 568
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Book Description
Fire in California’s Ecosystems describes fire in detail—both as an integral natural process in the California landscape and as a growing threat to urban and suburban developments in the state. Written by many of the foremost authorities on the subject, this comprehensive volume is an ideal authoritative reference tool and the foremost synthesis of knowledge on the science, ecology, and management of fire in California. Part One introduces the basics of fire ecology, including overviews of historical fires, vegetation, climate, weather, fire as a physical and ecological process, and fire regimes, and reviews the interactions between fire and the physical, plant, and animal components of the environment. Part Two explores the history and ecology of fire in each of California's nine bioregions. Part Three examines fire management in California during Native American and post-Euro-American settlement and also current issues related to fire policy such as fuel management, watershed management, air quality, invasive plant species, at-risk species, climate change, social dynamics, and the future of fire management. This edition includes critical scientific and management updates and four new chapters on fire weather, fire regimes, climate change, and social dynamics.
Author: Lizzie Johnson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593136403
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
The definitive firsthand account of California’s Camp Fire, the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century, Paradise is a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds. “A tour de force story of wildfire and a terrifying look at what lies ahead.”—San Francisco Chronicle (Best Books of the Year) On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead. As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned. She saw the smoldering rubble of a historic covered bridge and the beloved Black Bear Diner and she stayed long afterward, visiting shelters, hotels, and makeshift camps. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. We see a young mother fleeing with her newborn; a school bus full of children in search of an escape route; and a group of paramedics, patients, and nurses trapped in a cul-de-sac, fending off the fire with rakes and hoses. In Paradise, Johnson documents the unfolding tragedy with empathy and nuance. But she also investigates the root causes, from runaway climate change to a deeply flawed alert system to Pacific Gas and Electric’s decades-long neglect of critical infrastructure. A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again.
Author: David Carle
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520379144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
"What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did the California Indians use fire? David Carle focuses on this fundamental element of the natural world, giving a fascinating and concise view of this complex topic. This clearly written, dramatically illustrated book will help Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land management agencies; explains current policies, and explores many other topics, including the extreme and deadly fire events of 2020 and evidence that climate change is changing the wildfire story in California"--
Author: David Carle
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520379136
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
"What is fire? How are wildfires ignited? How do California's weather and topography influence fire? How did the California Indians use fire? David Carle focuses on this fundamental element of the natural world, giving a fascinating and concise view of this complex topic. This clearly written, dramatically illustrated book will help Californians, including the millions who live near naturally flammable wildlands, better understand their own place in the state's landscape. Carle covers the basics of fire ecology; looks at the effects of fire on wildlife, soil, water, and air; discusses fire-fighting organizations and land management agencies; explains current policies, and explores many other topics, including the extreme and deadly fire events of 2020 and evidence that climate change is changing the wildfire story in California"--
Author: David Carle
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520255771
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
“Carle does an excellent job of telling complex social, biological, and physical stories in a way that makes them not only accessible, but also interesting.”—Neil G. Sugihara, coeditor of Fire in California's Ecosystems “A welcome contribution to the California Natural History Guides series that integrates the natural and cultural history of fire in California in an engaging style.”—James K. Agee, author of Steward's Fork and Fire Ecology of Pacific Northwest Forests
Author: Stephen J. Pyne
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816535132
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
The coastal sage and shrublands of California burn. The mountain-encrusting chaparral burns. The conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, Cascades, and Trinity Alps burn. The rain-shadowed deserts after watering by El Niño cloudbursts and the thick forests of the rumpled Coast Range—all burn according to local rhythms of wetting and drying. Fire season, so the saying goes, lasts 13 months. In this collection of essays on the region, Stephen J. Pyne colorfully explores the ways the region has approached fire management and what sets it apart from other parts of the country. Pyne writes that what makes California’s fire scene unique is how its dramatically distinctive biomes have been yoked to a common system, ultimately committed to suppression, and how its fires burn with a character and on a scale commensurate with the state’s size and political power. California has not only a ferocity of flame but a cultural intensity that few places can match. California’s fires are instantly and hugely broadcast. They shape national institutions, and they have repeatedly defined the discourse of fire’s history. No other place has so sculpted the American way of fire. California is part of the multivolume series describing the nation’s fire scene region by region. The volumes in To the Last Smoke also cover Florida, the Northern Rockies, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and several other critical fire regions. The series serves as an important punctuation point to Pyne’s fifty-year career with wildland fire—both as a firefighter and a fire scholar. These unique surveys of regional pyrogeography are Pyne’s way of “keeping with it to the end,” encompassing the directive from his rookie season to stay with every fire “to the last smoke.”
