Latest news with #ThomasFire
San Francisco Chronicle
06-07-2025
- Climate
- San Francisco Chronicle
Deadly Texas flood: Could California face a similar disaster?
The catastrophic weekend flash flooding in Central Texas has killed nearly 80 people, with dozens missing and a death toll that's likely to rise. Despite occurring in a region known as ' Flash Flood Alley,' the sheer volume of rain — 6 to 10 inches in just three hours — combined with an unprecedented surge of the Guadalupe River, proved devastating. The river rose more than 20 feet within hours, transforming from a tranquil waterway into a torrent with flow rates greater than Niagara Falls. It's a scene that may feel unthinkable in California, but is it? Extreme flash floods happen less often here than in Texas, but they do occur and could become more common as the climate warms. A national flood risk analysis highlights California's coastal mountain basins and Sierra Nevada foothills among America's flash flood 'hot spots,' alongside the Texas Hill Country where this tragedy unfolded. The common ingredients are steep terrain, narrow canyons, hard soils that resist absorbing water, bursts of torrential rain and communities built directly in harm's way. But California adds another layer of risk: wildfire burn scars. After a fire, slopes lose their vegetation and can shed a deadly wave of mud, rocks, trees and water in what's known as a debris flow. Flash floods are fast-moving water surges that rapidly raise river level, while debris flows are thicker, slower, and often triggered by smaller storms hitting burned, unstable slopes. Both strike with little warning. Southern California's San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains are especially prone to this kind of disaster. On Christmas Day 2003, heavy rain on fire-scarred slopes triggered debris flows that tore through campgrounds and homes. At Waterman Canyon near San Bernardino, five adults and nine children were killed when mud and debris swept through a church camp, an event later linked in part to the design of a nearby Caltrans road. Parts of the coastal range face similar dangers. In January 2018, an intense thunderstorm over the Santa Ynez Mountains dropped more than half an inch of rain in just 15 minutes. The storm triggered a deadly debris flow from the Thomas Fire burn scar that tore through Montecito (Santa Barbara County), killing 23 people. Most of these California disasters have happened during the wet winter season, when large-scale storms fueled by atmospheric rivers are typically forecast days in advance. The Texas floods were so deadly in part because of their tropical moisture source and extreme rainfall rates. Totals nearing 2 feet required an air mass loaded with moisture and a slow-moving system that allowed storms to train repeatedly over the same area. In that case, the flooding was driven by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry. California is less likely to tap into that kind of tropical moisture, but it can happen. Monsoonal flow in July and August sometimes brings tropical air masses northward, triggering strong thunderstorms with heavy rain, especially in the Sierra Nevada. The east slopes of the Sierra, including Alpine and Mono counties, have seen monsoonal storms wash out roads and campgrounds with sudden flash floods. The risk is even higher in the state's high deserts, where fast-developing storms can drop torrential rain that the hard ground simply can't absorb fast enough. While California may be less prone to tropical deluges like Texas saw, the ingredients for sudden, deadly floods are here, especially on steep, fire-scarred slopes.
eNCA
24-05-2025
- eNCA
US power company to pay $82.5m for California wildfire
LOS ANGELES - One of California's largest utilities is to pay the US Forest Service $82.5-million for a wildfire that burned tens of thousands of acres (hectares) of woodland. The 2020 Bobcat Fire destroyed dozens of buildings as it tore through the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. The US government said Southern California Edison had not properly controlled vegetation near its power lines and the blaze erupted when trees touched a live wire. A 2023 lawsuit claimed damages from the company for the cost of fighting the fire on Forest Service land as well as for remediation of damage caused to campgrounds, trails and wildlife habitats. "This record settlement against Southern California Edison provides meaningful compensation to taxpayers for the extensive costs of fighting the Bobcat Fire and for the widespread damage to public lands," said US Attorney Bill Essayli. "My office will continue to aggressively pursue recovery for suppression costs and environmental damages from any entity that causes harm to the public's forests and other precious national resources." Southern California Edison is no stranger to paying out large sums of money for wildfires where its equipment was suspected to have been at fault. The company handed over more than $2.7-billion in settlements over the 2017 Thomas Fire that tore through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, killing two people and destroying hundreds of buildings. It paid $2.2-billion for the 2018 Woolsey Fire that burned through Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killing three people and damaging more than 1,600 buildings. Investigators probing the deadly Eaton Fire, one of two blazes that ripped through Los Angeles at the start of this year, are homing in on SCE transmission lines as a possible source of ignition.
NDTV
24-05-2025
- NDTV
US Power Company To Pay $82.5 Million For California Wildfire
One of California's largest utilities is to pay the US Forest Service $82.5 million for a wildfire that burned tens of thousands of acres (hectares) of woodland, the government said Friday. The 2020 Bobcat Fire destroyed dozens of buildings as it tore through the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. The US government said Southern California Edison had not properly controlled vegetation near its power lines and the blaze erupted when trees touched a live wire. A 2023 lawsuit claimed damages from the company for the cost of fighting the fire on Forest Service land as well as for remediation of damage caused to campgrounds, trails and wildlife habitats. "This record settlement against Southern California Edison provides meaningful compensation to taxpayers for the extensive costs of fighting the Bobcat Fire and for the widespread damage to public lands," said US Attorney Bill Essayli. "My office will continue to aggressively pursue recovery for suppression costs and environmental damages from any entity that causes harm to the public's forests and other precious national resources." Southern California Edison is no stranger to paying out large sums of money for wildfires where its equipment was suspected to have been at fault. The company handed over more that $2.7 billion in settlements over the 2017 Thomas Fire that tore through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, killing two people and destroying hundreds of buildings. It paid $2.2 billion for the 2018 Woolsey Fire that burned through Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killing three people and damaging more than 1,600 buildings. Investigators probing the deadly Eaton Fire, one of two blazes that ripped through Los Angeles at the start of this year, are homing on in SCE transmission lines as a possible source of ignition.
France 24
23-05-2025
- France 24
US power company to pay $82.5m for California wildfire
The 2020 Bobcat Fire destroyed dozens of buildings as it tore through the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles. The US government said Southern California Edison had not properly controlled vegetation near its power lines and the blaze erupted when trees touched a live wire. A 2023 lawsuit claimed damages from the company for the cost of fighting the fire on Forest Service land as well as for remediation of damage caused to campgrounds, trails and wildlife habitats. "This record settlement against Southern California Edison provides meaningful compensation to taxpayers for the extensive costs of fighting the Bobcat Fire and for the widespread damage to public lands," said US Attorney Bill Essayli. "My office will continue to aggressively pursue recovery for suppression costs and environmental damages from any entity that causes harm to the public's forests and other precious national resources." Southern California Edison is no stranger to paying out large sums of money for wildfires where its equipment was suspected to have been at fault. The company handed over more that $2.7 billion in settlements over the 2017 Thomas Fire that tore through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, killing two people and destroying hundreds of buildings. It paid $2.2 billion for the 2018 Woolsey Fire that burned through Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killing three people and damaging more than 1,600 buildings. Investigators probing the deadly Eaton Fire, one of two blazes that ripped througth Los Angeles at the start of this year, are homing on in SCE transmission lines as a possible source of ignition.
Washington Post
06-04-2025
- General
- Washington Post
I'm a disaster reporter. But I was not prepared to watch my city burn.
I should have known better. I have seen what wildfire storms can do to cities and entire towns: Santa Rosa, Paradise, Redding, Malibu, Berry Creek, Greenville, Lahaina. As a climate disaster reporter, I know how quickly special places disappear. I routinely walk through their leveled remains. I grew up in Malibu, the so-called wildfire capital of North America, which some say should just be allowed to burn. Every fall, it seemed, we'd look up at an anxiety-inducing orange sky, wondering if this was it. I remember as a 6-year-old stuffing my toys in the one black plastic bag my mom said I could take, and sobbing hysterically as police blared that we had to get out now. My father, a second-generation immigrant and attorney from Upstate New York who has no business fighting fires, was one of those who always refused to leave. I used to wonder if the last time I'd ever see him would be from the back seat of our packed station wagon as he sat on our wood-shingled roof in the smoke-obscured dark, holding a garden hose. That's California for you. But something shifted in our consciousness when the Tubbs Fire ripped through Santa Rosa one October night in 2017, burning apartment complexes, supermarkets and gas stations. Then, a few months later, the Thomas Fire stunned us. Those firestorms, experts say, marked the beginning of the modern era of fire. Wildfires that sparked in brushy rural hillsides could reach cities in a matter of hours, catching thousands of people completely unprepared. A year later, I watched the Woolsey Fire explode in the hills, jump a freeway and barrel into my hometown, turning the tree-filled canyon road where my dad taught me to ride a bike into a battleground. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Within days, I flew to Paradise to cover the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and is still the deadliest fire in the state's history. I followed search-and-rescue crews as they looked for bone fragments and other tiny pieces of human remains in ash-filled lots and in vehicles where people trying to escape might have hidden as flames overtook them. I knew these were warnings. We have been inching toward the reality that Los Angeles could burn from the foothills to the ocean for a long time. The same mix of natural and human-made ingredients that turn brush fires into urban conflagrations have only become more potent. I've lost count of the number of veteran firefighters, their eyes bloodshot from working 48 or 72 straight hours, who have told me, 'I've never seen fire behave like this before.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Each major, once unfathomable disaster has been laying out the truth in clear, plain terms: In this era of climate change, there are fewer and fewer safe places. Great loss, for many of us, is inevitable: You may watch your home, your childhood and your community get wiped out, perhaps more than once. There is so much science signaling the risks, so many maps and models pinpointing Zip codes that could be wiped off the map. I know all this. I am supposed to be prepared. I wasn't. I never could have imagined Los Angeles burning the way it did: two fires sparking on the same day, on opposite ends of our sprawling metropolis, essentially taking out two whole towns, killing 29 people and counting, in one of the most climate-conscious states in the U.S. Nothing prepares you, I've learned, to watch so many homes and histories you know intimately go up in flames — especially your father's. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) How is this happening? This can't be happening. This is not supposed to happen. I could not process what I was seeing. Sunset Boulevard, that famous thoroughfare that cuts nearly straight across L.A., where I grew up driving, and where my dad now lived, was on fire. The Palisades blaze had sparked about 24 hours earlier, on the morning of Jan. 7, miles away in the highly flammable Santa Monica Mountains. Now flames were flashing out of living and bedroom windows, swallowing homes I had seen standing safe the evening before when I had been out reporting. I didn't see any firefighters around. Instinctually, I headed north, toward my dad's house, where I could tell the fire was active because the black smoke got thicker. A few cars were burning. As I drove, I started having flashbacks: embers covering my windshield like confetti, driving through a hometown canyon that had become an unrecognizable inferno, watching houses I could draw with my eyes closed go up in flames. It was 2018, and I was back in Malibu, swerving around power lines on my smoking childhood street, praying. No no no no — Not again, not again. There's something primal and simple, yet inexplicable, about home — that one corner of the world that holds and reaffirms your history, your existence, no matter how much time passes. Even if it hurts, even if the memories are bad, we want to hold on to it. (Illustration by Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post; Brianna Sacks family photo) Home, for me and my family, has been a painful, tender subject for a while. In 2014, my parents suddenly separated, and it tore our once tight unit apart. Eventually, they rented out our home, storing all of 'us' — our report cards, trophies, framed photos, yearbooks, the imprint of my first step, locks of our baby hair, family heirlooms — in a backyard shed. When the Woolsey Fire roared through our wooded canyon in November 2018, it burned down my neighbors' homes but somehow only drew a definitive black line around ours. When I pulled up that day while out reporting on the disaster, I went limp with relief. Then I walked up the driveway, stood in the scorched grass and stared at a blackened pile. The ash, all that remained of the shed, was still warm as I dug through it, looking for anything salvageable, any tangible piece of us. A few years later, my parents sold the house. This past June, my dad, now 80, moved to Pacific Palisades. It was the happiest I'd seen him in years, and it felt like a homecoming. After a rough period, he'd finally found a place that felt like him, with a backyard for his dog, a sprawling tree he dubbed 'the wisdom tree,' and space for him to lie in the sun — his favorite pastime. This house, he declared, was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Driving slowly down Sunset, I squinted to find his evacuated house in the swirling dark smoke. I made out his bright red, often broken-down 1988 Mercedes 560 SL convertible — which we've called 'the red car' since I was 2 years old — in the driveway. Immediately, I saw us in it: my dad squeezing me and my brother into the cracked brown-leather back seat, playing the Beatles before dropping us off at preschool; my dad, always with the top down, teaching me how to drive in a beach parking lot. Staring at the red car, my eyes finally registered the flames behind it. They were dancing in his living room, which he'd filled with all his books and our childhood portraits — where, in December, we had thrown a big party for his birthday. I could see my bedroom burning: my college journals, my mother's artwork. My breath turned ragged, but I couldn't stop watching the flames. They were hypnotic, and everything around me disappeared. A popping sound from a swinging power line brought me back to reality. I knew I shouldn't be there. A police cruiser roared up; the officer gestured at me through the smoke, his eyes bulging. I turned around and started driving. House after house was gone. I stared at my hands on the steering wheel as if they were someone else's and began to hyperventilate. This must be a panic attack. When I made my way back down to Pacific Coast Highway, I picked up my phone, trying to calm my breathing. After so many years walking up to still-smoking piles of disintegrated walls and twisted metal, I've learned how to tell people they have lost everything. They rarely cry, the shock is so sharp. My dad didn't either when I said, hollowly, 'I'm so sorry.' All he could say was, 'Thank you for letting me know.' (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) I was watching a Chase bank burn on Sunset Boulevard when I got my friend's text. 'Our house is gone.' She lives about 40 miles away, on the other side of L.A. in Altadena, a historic, racially diverse, beautiful, ramshackle gem of a town at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The community, with its hilly, tree-canopied streets, was another home for me. I'd recently lived there with my friend and her partner in their cozy house filled with plants, books and dogs. Like my dad in the Palisades Fire, they took only a duffel bag as they fled the Eaton Fire. They'd been through wildfires before, but they'd never expected a fire to swallow half a town before it reached them. In the following days and weeks, I watched my city become the latest historic American tragedy. Scores of disaster response and recovery groups and nonprofits, including those I often work with, set up their usual aid distribution depots. This time, my sources were the ones calling me, sending me their '5 tips to deal with trauma.' Those pamphlets are hard to follow, I've learned, when you intimately know the places where so many people died. In Altadena, the bulk of the deaths were clustered around my former address, on streets where I had run and walked every day. I wondered if I had waved at Lora Swayne or Evelyn McClendon or Unidentified Doe No. 37 in the mornings, because their homes were on my usual route. Maybe I had stood in line behind Anthony Mitchell at Unincorporated Coffee. Or perhaps I'd smiled and said hi to Unidentified Doe No. 49 or 50 or 54 at West Altadena's weekly Buy Nothing Group grocery giveaways. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Along with the extinguished lives, there is the mounting, crushing tally of all the lost landmarks that you didn't realize were landmarks until other newspapers started writing about their ruins: diners, historic homes, divey seafood shacks that tethered my childhood. I will never get to show them to my children. That loss is brutal. But it's nothing compared with the suffering that comes next. The real disaster, people who do this work know, doesn't start until Day 30. That's when the adrenaline ebbs and the oppressive nightmare of the new reality hits. Insurance payouts are never enough. Residents whose homes survived will start to wish they'd burned down because of smoke contamination. Many families who were doing just fine before the fire will not be able to afford anything close to the lives they once had. This is the part of the disaster we often don't talk about: the long aftermath, and how paralyzing it is, especially for those already living on the edge. One Paradise Fire victim used to call or message me on Facebook in the middle of the night. She'd tell me she wanted to give up. What was the point of living this way? Another woman, a former addict, would count off how many times she'd come 'this close' to using again. She started drinking heavily. After Hurricane Ian, an 84-year-old man living alone in his torn-up home would text me about the pain he was in: 'My daughter removed all the guns from my house so I don't pull the trigger and end it all.' (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Then there's the PTSD: For weeks or months, many people see fire when they close their eyes. Others feel their anxiety spike when they hear a helicopter, when the wind picks up or when they smell smoke from a cigarette or a barbecue. After 2018, I'd drive by familiar hillsides and see flames that weren't there. We are well past the two-month mark, and some people are just now able to cry. It's been curious, they say, what triggers the tears. One man who lost everything broke down while buying cans of soup at the grocery store, realizing the last time he'd done that he'd had a cupboard — his cupboard — to put them in. Even though I got my car deep-cleaned twice and changed the filters, I still smell sharp, acidic smoke when I turn it on. Often, without warning, the image of my dad's burning house flashes before my eyes. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, I took my father home for the first time since he'd evacuated on Jan. 7. It was jarring. Driving past his barely standing neighborhood dry cleaner, he mentioned that he still had a few sweaters there and 'a good shirt.' 'I wonder if I could pick them up?' he said quietly. In my experience with previous fires, families had usually found pieces of themselves in the ash: a ring dish, a heart-shaped ceramic bowl, a bracelet. Outfitted with shovels, boots, gloves and white protective Tyvek suits, we hoped to unearth my grandmother's 100-year-old engagement ring. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Staring at the sodden layers of stucco, the tile roof, metal pipes and stone, it was hard to remember that this used to be a bright yellow two-story home filled with Jewish history and meditation books that my dad had been carrying around since I was born. We tried to map out where in the debris his bedroom might be. The toxic chunks of nail-laden wood and drywall made it impossible. My dad said little. At one point, he put his glove-covered hands on the cracked remnants of his office wall and bowed his head. 'My whole life went up in smoke,' he said. (Illustration by Matt Huynh For The Washington Post; Rachel Gray) We're in uncharted (though predicted) wildfire territory now. I keep asking myself what it means that we are here. For my father, it means letting go of that kind of home. Like so many others, especially residents in the last chapter of their lives, he's choosing not to start over. He got some insurance money, but he will spend an unknown amount of time living in a client's house, wearing mostly donated clothes. It's just easier, he said. Because of that loss, though, I have spent more time with my dad these last few weeks than I did in most of last year. We lie side by side in the sun and talk like we used to. We spend weekend nights together watching movies. I go with him to the farmers market, like when I was younger. One afternoon, I asked him how it was for him, to see all that devastation. It was strange, he said. When we were in the rubble, as he was watching me walk across the nail-filled boards and shards of roof, he saw me when I was little: a toddler marching across every wall I could find when we'd go on walks together — a 4-year-old pretending to be a gymnast, balancing on the back of our couch, reaching for his hand. I squeezed it. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post)
