Thursday, January 9, 2025

More people are living in risky wildfire zones

Also today: Gridlocked cars become enduring image of LA fires, and ambitious high-speed rail plans advance in the Baltic region.
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The devastation from ongoing blazes across the Los Angeles region illustrates the hazards of living in the so-called wildland-urban interface, where flammable wilderness meets human development. The combination of open space, parks and houses in a place like Pacific Palisades — where thousands of residents have fled and more than 1,000 structures have burned — makes these areas susceptible to wildfires.

Yet even as climate change fuels more intense events, an increasing number of people around the US have been moving into these danger zones — particularly during the pandemic — due in part to high housing demand and a desire to be near nature. Their popularity has only made evacuation and wildfire management more challenging, Kendra Pierre-Louis reports. Today on CityLab: More People Are Living in the Riskiest Wildfire Zones

— Linda Poon

More on CityLab

Ambitious High-Speed Rail Plans Advance in the Baltic Region
A new train line would cut travel times between Tallinn and Warsaw. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it's also taken on a political role. 

Welcome to the 'Pyrocene,' an Epoch of Runaway Fire
Fire scholar Stephen J. Pyne proposes a pyrocentric view of the last 10,000 years — and warns that California's wildfires herald a very combustible future.

Gridlocked Cars Amid Wildfires Is an Enduring Image From LA
Many of the apocalyptic scenes involve one of LA's most important symbols: cars.

Jimmy Carter's home-building legacy

4,390
The number of houses built or renovated by the late President Jimmy Carter alongside his wife through the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. Carter is being honored today with a state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

What we're reading

  • LA fires underscore how much California has to lose if Trump withholds disaster aid (Cal Matters)

  • Fear on the subway: Perception and reality (New York Times)

  • Want to sponsor a piece of ocean paradise? How one Pacific island's novel response to rising seas is paying off (Guardian)

  • The promises and challenges of the Philippines' new climate-resilient city (Grist)

  • The new museum trend helping us regain our lost attention (BBC)


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