DETROIT — Electric vehicle fires pose safety risks to first responders and guidelines from manufacturers about how to deal with them have been inadequate, according to U.S. investigators. There are also gaps in industry safety standards and research on high-voltage lithium-ion battery fires, especially in high-speed, severe crashes, the National...
NorCal Fire That Killed 3 Threatens Thousands of Homes
OROVILLE — A Northern California wildfire threatened thousands of homes Thursday after winds whipped it into a monster that incinerated houses in a small mountain community and killed at least three people. Several other people have been critically burned and hundreds, if not thousands, of homes and other buildings are...
Firefighting Crews Make Slow Progress With California Fires
SAN FRANCISCO — Fire crews made slow progress Saturday battling some of the largest wildfires in California history — thanks to improved weather conditions and additional resources coming from others states. But danger loomed with the threat of thunderstorms and lightning forecast for Sunday that could spark new fires and...
Reinforcements Arriving to Help in Deadly California Fires
SAN FRANCISCO — Firefighters and aircraft from 10 states began arriving in California Friday to help weary crews battling some of the largest blazes in state history as weekend weather threatened to renew the advance of flames that have killed six people and incinerated hundreds of homes. Some 560 wildfires...
Fires Set Stage for Irreversible Forest Losses in Australia
Australia’s forests are burning at a rate unmatched in modern times and scientists say the landscape is being permanently altered as a warming climate brings profound changes to the island continent. Heat waves and drought have fueled bigger and more frequent fires in parts of Australia, so far this season torching...
Judge Threatens to Force PG&E to Hire More Tree Trimmers
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Thursday threatened to force Pacific Gas & Electric to hire more tree trimmers to reduce the chances of its electrical grid igniting fires in Northern California and adhere to a requirement imposed after the utility's natural gas lines blew up a neighborhood a...
Australian Prime Minister Is Jeered in Wildfire-Ravaged Zone
PERTH, Australia — Prime Minister Scott Morrison was confronted by angry residents who cursed and insulted him Thursday as he visited a wildfire-ravaged corner of the country. Locals in Cobargo, in New South Wales, yelled at him, made obscene gestures and called him an “idiot” and worse, criticizing him for...
Australia Sending Aid to Wildfire Towns as Death Toll Rises
PERTH, Australia — Australia deployed military ships and aircraft Wednesday to help communities ravaged by apocalyptic wildfires that have left at least 17 people dead nationwide and sent thousands of residents and holidaymakers fleeing to the shoreline. Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns...
Study: Alien Grasses Are Making More Frequent US Wildfires
WASHINGTON — For much of the United States, invasive grass species are making wildfires more frequent, especially in fire-prone California, a new study finds. Twelve non-native species act as "little arsonist grasses," said study co-author Bethany Bradley, a University of Massachusetts professor of environmental conservation. Wherever the common Mediterranean grass invades, including...
Walters: Newsom Now Owns the Wildfire and PG&E Crisis
The careers of political executives — presidents, governors and big-city mayors — are often defined, fairly or not, by how they respond to crises. Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, John Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis and Jimmy Carter and the Iranian hostage...