Fire season is back, if it ever went away. And it's no longer a natural disaster story limited in geographic scope. Now it's a nationwide U.S. story touching on climate, money, politics, zoning, pollution and more. The latest Tipsheet runs down key information sources, plus what make a good peg for your local wildfire reporting.
"Unrelenting rain will drench the already saturated U.S. Midwest on Thursday and Friday, forecasters said, after floods in the region killed at least five people and forced residents in vulnerable areas to evacuate their flooded communities."
"An abandoned pipeline that was cut off underground and left uncapped and connected to a natural gas well fueled an explosion that destroyed a Colorado home and killed two people last month, investigators said yesterday."
"The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has concluded that a 2015 explosion at a Torrance, California, refinery then owned by Exxon Mobil Corp could have been prevented, the agency concluded in a report issued on Wednesday."
"A new tsunami warning system could have saved many of the 22,000 people killed by the massive tsunami following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, had it been in place there at the time."
"An explosion at a home in Colorado, which killed two people and prompted the state's biggest oil producer to shut down some of its wells, has highlighted the tension between Colorado's flourishing oil business and its rapid housing development."
"Dozens of Texas politicians and business leaders are urging President Donald Trump to commit $15 billion toward protecting the Houston area from a devastating hurricane."
"Official reports released Monday say the catastrophic damage to Oroville Dam’s main spillway probably stemmed from swift water flows under the concrete chute, which was cracked and of uneven thickness."
"A biblical torrent here in October 2015 destroyed 51 dams, flooded hundreds of homes and businesses and led to more than 15 deaths. Officials say the disaster is a cautionary tale for a patchwork of weak, underfunded state dam oversight agencies across the country."
"Last year Florida was waterlogged. This year Florida is on fire. More than 100 active wildfires are burning across the state right now, according to the Florida Forest Service. Twenty-seven of them are scorching more than 100 acres each."
