Disasters

"Heat wave duration records could be broken in the Pacific Northwest this week and authorities are expanding capacity at some cooling centers as temperatures near triple digits are forecast to extend into the weekend."

"Since Friday, the Oak fire has consumed more than 18,000 acres of the sparsely populated mountain community. And by Tuesday morning, the blaze, located near Yosemite National Park, had destroyed 41 structures and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes."

"The Biden administration unveiled a website on Tuesday to help Americans stay safe from extreme heat, as scorching temperatures continued to grip portions of the country."

"Power grids are dangerously strained, and resulting blackouts could take a deadly toll."

"The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change."

"Major wildfires in Europe are starting earlier in the year, becoming more frequent, doing more damage and getting harder to stop. And, scientists say, they’re probably going to get worse as climate change intensifies unless countermeasures are taken."

"Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category."

"A destructive wildfire near Yosemite National Park burned out of control through tinder-dry forest on Sunday and had grown into one of California’s biggest blazes of the year, forcing thousands of residents to flee remote mountain communities."

"Two summers ago, Hurricane Laura wrecked Betty Swope’s modest bungalow at the edge of Lake Charles, a city surrounded by oil refineries in southwest Louisiana. The Federal Emergency Management Agency helped at first, paying for Ms. Swope and her son Adrian to stay in hotels, then putting a trailer in their yard and providing about $7,000 toward fixing their house."