Latest Wildfire Headlines
All the headlines from our Wildfire Topic Page, ordered by recency.
California Burnin’ – a Warning Against One-Party Rule: Opinion
Sep 22 2020 // “California, folks, is America fast forward.” Thus said Governor Gavin Newsom, hoarsely, amid brown smoke at the North Complex Fire on Sept. 11. “What we’re experiencing right here is coming to a...
Frequent Wildfires Decimating Forests Becomes Concern Worldwide
Sep 22 2020 // Wildfires among ponderosa pines and Douglas firs of the U.S. West have long been part of nature’s cycle of renewal, as much as the changing of the seasons. But as climate change makes the region more arid, wildfires...
Judge Allows Great Smoky Mountains Wildfire Lawsuits to Move Forward
Sep 21 2020 // U.S. park officials have failed to show enough was done to keep the public updated as a deadly wildfire spread from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2016, a judge ruled. The decision earlier this month by U.S....
Utah’s Wildfire Costs Soar with Human-Caused Blazes
Sep 21 2020 // Utah’s wildfire season has broken records for the number of human-caused fires and the costs to taxpayers. During a presentation of the Utah State Legislature’s powerful Executive Appropriations Committee, the...
Fire Weather May Improve for Pacific Northwest, No Such Luck for Tinderbox California
Sep 18 2020 // Rains may bring some reprieve to those suffering from massive blazes in the Pacific Northwest in the next few weeks, but forecasters don’t expect any help for wildfire-plagued California anytime soon. That’s...
Moody’s Says Property/Casualty Insurers Face Significant Losses from Western Wildfires
Sep 17 2020 // Dozens of wildfires raging in California, Oregon, Washington and other Western states have resulted in loss of life, damaged or destroyed about 9,657 homes and commercial structures and burned more than 5 million acres,...
California Commissioner Holding Hearing on Homeowners Rates in Wake of Wildfires
Sep 16 2020 // California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said today that he will convene an investigatory hearing in October in advance of initiating a series of regulatory actions that will protect residents from the increasing...
Why Does California Keep Burning? These Scientists Are Studying Answers.
Sep 16 2020 // Residents of fire-ravaged Western states, and an entire world of observers looking on in horror, have asked themselves, “How can this be happening?” As fire last week taunted Paradise, California, destroyed in...
3 Reasons People Don’t Buy Homeowners’ Insurance
Sep 16 2020 // I recently learned about two separate times when families lost everything when their homes burned. These are tragic losses and thankfully, the only things that were lost were replaceable items. No one got hurt, but they...
Colorado Wildfire Destroyed 25 Residential Buildings, 54 Structures
Sep 15 2020 // A month-old northern Colorado wildfire has destroyed 25 residential buildings and a total of 54 structures, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office says. The fire near Red Feather Lakes has burned 160 square miles and...
Bad Air From Western Wildfires Just Won’t Ease up
Sep 15 2020 // Relief from putrid, dangerous air spewing from massive wildfires across the West won’t come until later in the week or beyond, scientists and forecasters say, and the hazy and gunk-filled skies might stick around for...
Oregon Employers Urged to Protect Workers by Avoiding Outdoor Work
Sep 14 2020 // Oregon workplace and public health officials are urging employers to stop or delay outdoor work activity where they can and take other reasonable steps to protect workers when air quality reaches the...
CalFire: 14K Firefighters on the Line at 29 Major Wildfires
Sep 11 2020 // As critical fire weather conditions subsided, firefighters accomplished full containment on one of the many fires burning in the state, according to the latest report from CalFire. Roughly 14,000 firefighters remain on the...
Wildfires Grow in Oregon as 500K Evacuated, Death Toll Rises
Sep 11 2020 // Around half a million people in Oregon evacuated as dozens of extreme, wind-driven wildfires scorched U.S. West Coast states on Friday, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 16 people, state and local...
Report Urges Urgent Action from Financial Regulators to Address Climate Change
Sep 10 2020 // Yet another report in a long line of reports is out urging urgent action from financial regulators, including insurance regulators, the Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission. The report was commissioned by...
Explained: How California’s Wildfires Could Spark a Financial Crisis
Sep 10 2020 // Wildfires across the U.S. West are among the sparks from climate change that could ignite a U.S. financial crisis by damaging home values, state tourism and local government budgets, an advisory panel to a U.S. markets...
Strong Winds Kick up Pacific Northwest Wildfires
Sep 9 2020 // Hurricane-force winds and high temperatures kicked up wildfires across parts of the Pacific Northwest over the Labor Day weekend, burning hundreds of thousands of acres and mostly destroying the small town of Malden in...
Record 2 Million Acres Burned in California Wildfires
Sep 9 2020 // Wildfires have burned a record 2 million acres in California this year, and the danger for more destruction is so high the U.S. Forest Service announced Monday it was closing all eight national forests in the southern half...
California Burns, Winds Kick up And Power Outages Follow
Sep 8 2020 // New wildfires ravaged California during a scorching Labor Day weekend that saw a dramatic airlift of more than 200 people trapped by flames and ended with the state’s largest utility turning off power to 172,000...
Insurers, Covid-Hit Businesses May Be at Odds Over Interruption Claims for Disasters
Sep 4 2020 // As insurers brace for an expensive natural-disaster season because of storms and wildfires ravaging parts of the United States, the novel coronavirus is giving them an odd financial break. Many companies that were damaged...
