This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. One year on from the Eaton Fire, long after the vicious winds that sent embers cascading from the San Gabriel mountains and the flames that swallowed entire streets, a shadow still hangs over Altadena. Construction on new properties is under way, and families whose homes survived the fire have begun to return. But many are grappling with an urgent question: is it safe to be here? The fire upended life in this part of Los Angeles county. By the time firefighters brought it under control, 19 people were dead, tens of thousands displaced and nearly 9,500 structures destroyed, primarily in Altadena but also in Pasadena and Sierra Madre. Guardian graphic. Fire extent source: Cal Fire. Building damage source: analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Using building data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and fire perimeters from NIFC/FIRIS. All times are localGuardian graphic. Fire extent source: Cal Fire. Building damage source: analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Using building data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and fire perimeters from NIFC/FIRIS. Note: all times are local The flames incinerated many older homes and businesses filled with lead paint and asbestos. They showered the community with toxins, leaving tall piles of ash and unseen traces of heavy metals in the soil and along and inside standing structures. Research has indicated some hazards remain even after properties have undergone remediation, the clean-up process that is supposed to restore homes and ensure they are safe to occupy. As Altadena fights to return, residents—some eager to stay in the community and others who simply can’t afford to go anywhere else—are facing immense challenges while trying to rebuild their lives and come back home. Official information about the health risks was limited early on and those returning often only learned about the dangers as they went. Some people have developed health concerns such as migraines and respiratory issues. Many are still battling their insurance companies to fully cover their costs, and make certain their homes are habitable. Their predicament highlights the increased dangers that come with urban fires, and shows how Altadena has come to serve as a sort of living laboratory with scientists and residents learning in real time. Nicole Maccalla, a data scientist, and her family moved back into their Altadena home over the summer after their property underwent an extensive cleanup process, but their air purifiers still register high levels of particulate matter, heavy sediment appears when they vacuum and when it rains the distinctive smell from the fire returns. “The toll of displacement was really high on my family. And I just had to move home and try [to] mitigate risk and keep fighting the good fight,” she said. “There’s always that back-of-your-mind concern: Did I make the right choice? But I also don’t have other choices.” Early on in those first careening hours of the fire, as thick smoke and ash fell like snow over her yard, Dawn Fanning was sure her home would not be spared. The wind was blowing from the fire straight to the Spanish bungalow the producer shared with her adult son, and it seemed there was no way to stop it. Dawn Fanning outside her home in Pasadena, California, on December 28 2025. The interior of her home has been found to have lead and asbestos after the Eaton Fire.Stella Kalinina/Guardian Fanning’s home, miraculously, escaped the flames. But, while the stucco structure was intact—clothes still hanging undisturbed in her closet and her son’s baby photos packed carefully in bins in the garage—it hadn’t been unscathed either. Virtually nothing in Altadena was. “It’s dusty and there’s piles of ash in the windowsills and on the floor. At first glance, it doesn’t look any different,” Fanning said. “Your house looks the same—but it’s not. There’s toxicity in your attic and in your crawlspace and on your mattresses and on all the things.” Confused and frustrated with the local government’s handling of health concerns, Maccalla and Fanning joined other fire survivors to form Eaton Fire Residents United in hopes of ensuring the impacted areas recover safely. The community group is developing testing and remediation guidelines, gathered hygienic testing reports of hundreds of homes, and advocated for fire survivors and workers. > “When she awoke at 3 a.m., the blaze had formed a horseshoe shape around her > house, and smoke filled the room.” “There [have been] huge threats to the health and safety of residents, children in schools, elderly and immunocompromised, workers that are coming into this area that are being exposed to hazards in the workplace,” Maccalla said. “We’re still trying to work on that and get the protections people need.” Barely 15 miles north-east of downtown Los Angeles, Altadena at the start of last year was home to some 43,000 people, many lured by the affordable home prices, proximity to the mountains and bucolic feel. It has long been one of the most diverse cities in the region with a thriving Black community that began to grow during the great migration. In the early evening on January 7 2025, Fanning, who had lived in her home in the area for two decades, had a feeling she couldn’t shake that something could go very wrong. There were treacherous winds that forecasters warned posed a serious fire risk. Already, a fire was spreading rapidly on the other side of the county in the Pacific Palisades, where frantic residents were trying to evacuate and firefighters were clearing the area. Some 35 miles away, Fanning and her son were watching coverage of the unfolding fire while readying their property. Then came an alert—not from officials—but from a local meteorologist who was telling his followers to get out now. Fanning spotted flames several blocks away and she and her son decided it was time to leave. A few miles to the east, Rosa Robles was evacuating with her grandchild in tow, leaving her husband and adult children. She wanted them to go—but they were protecting the home. Armed with garden hoses, they tried to save the residence and the other houses on their block. Sometimes the wind was so strong it blew the water back in their faces, Robles said. Maccalla’s power had gone out that morning, and she and her children were sitting around watching the TV drama Fire Country on an iPad in the dark when they got the call about the fire. It seemed far away at the time, Maccalla recalled, and she felt prepared as a member of a community emergency response team. They got out lamps and began packing in case they needed to leave. She set alarms hourly to monitor the progress of the fire while her children slept. When she awoke at three, the blaze had formed a horseshoe shape around her house, and smoke filled the room. The family evacuated with their two dogs and two cats. Tamara Artin had returned from work to see chaos on the street, with fierce winds and billowing smoke all around the house she rented with her husband. Artin, who is Armenian by way of Iran and has lived in Los Angeles for about six years, always loved the area. She enjoyed the history and sprawling green parks, and had been excited to live here. Now the pair was quickly abandoning the home they had moved into just three months earlier, heading toward a friend’s house with their bags and passports. Fanning and her son had gone to a friend’s home too. As they stayed up late listening to the police scanner, they heard emergency responders call out addresses where flames were spreading. These were friends’ homes. She waited to hear her own. > “We were worried, of course, because we were inhaling all those chemicals > without knowing what it is.” In the first days after the fire began, the risk remained and there was little help available with firefighting resources spread across Los Angeles. Maccalla and her son soon returned to their property to try to protect their home and those of their neighbors. “I was working on removing a bunch of debris that had flown into the yard and all these dry leaves. I didn’t know at the time that I shouldn’t touch any of that,” she said.” The devastation in Altadena, as in the Palisades, was staggering. Many of the 19 people who died were older adults who hadn’t received evacuation warnings for hours after people in other areas of town, if at all. Physically, parts of Altadena were almost unrecognizable. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, bright red flame retardant streaked the hillsides. Off Woodbury Road, not far from where Robles and Artin lived, seemingly unblemished homes stood next to blackened lots where nothing remained but fireplaces and charred rubble—scorched bicycles, collapsed beds and warped ovens. The pungent smell of smoke seemed to embed itself in the nose. Robles would sometimes get lost in the place she had lived her whole life as she tried to navigate streets that had been stripped of any identifiable landmarks. Fire scorched the beloved community garden, the country club, an 80-year-old hardware store, the Bunny Museum and numerous schools and houses of worship. Artin and her husband returned to their home, which still stood, after a single night. They had no family in the area and nowhere else to go—hotels were packed across the county. For nearly two weeks they lived without water or power as they tried to clean up, throwing away most of their furniture and belongings, even shoes, and all of the food in the fridge and freezer. “We were worried, of course, because we were inhaling all those chemicals without knowing what it is, but we didn’t have a choice,” Artin recalled. As fires burn through communities, they spread particulate matter far and wide, cause intense smoke damage in standing structures and cars, and release chemicals even miles beyond the burned area. > After one round of remediation, “six out of 10 homes were still coming back > with lead and or asbestos levels that exceeded EPA safety thresholds.” When Fanning saw her home for the first time, thick piles of ash covered the floors. She was eager to return, but as she tried to figure out her next steps, reading scientific articles and guides, and joining Zoom calls with other concerned residents, it was clear she needed to learn more about precisely what was in the ash. Asbestos was found in her home, meaning all porous items, clothing and furniture, were completely ruined. “You can’t wash lead and asbestos out of your clothing. I was like, OK, this is real and I need to gather as much evidence [as I can] to find out what’s in my house.” In Altadena, more than 90 percent of homes had been built before 1975 and likely had lead-based paint and toxic asbestos, both of which the EPA has since banned, according to a report from the California Institute of Technology. All sorts of things burned along with the houses, Fanning said: plastic, electric cars, lithium batteries. “The winds were shoving this into our homes,” she said. The roof on Maccalla’s home had to be rebuilt, and significant cleanup was required for the smoke damage and layers of ash that blanketed curtains and beds. Despite these concerns, residents grew increasingly frustrated about what they viewed as a lack of official information about the safety of returning to their homes. Many also encountered pushback from their insurance providers that said additional testing for hazards, or more intensive remediation efforts recommended by experts, were unnecessary and not covered under their policies. So earlier this year a group of residents, including Fanning and Maccalla, formed Eaton Fire Residents United (EFRU). The group includes scientists and people dedicated to educating and supporting the community, ensuring there is data collection to support legislation, and assembling an expert panel to establish protocols for future fires, Fanning said. They’ve published research based on testing reports from hundreds of properties across the affected area, and advocated that homes should receive a comprehensive clearance before residents return. Research released by EFRU and headed by Maccalla, who has a doctorate in education and specializes in research methodology, found that more than half of homes that had been remediated still had levels of lead and/or asbestos that rendered them uninhabitable. “There’s still widespread contamination and that one round of remediation was not sufficient, the majority of the time. Six out of 10 homes were still coming back with lead and or asbestos levels that exceeded EPA safety thresholds,” said Maccalla, who serves as EFRU’S director of data science and educational outreach. The interior of Dawn Fanning’s home has been found to have lead and asbestos after the Eaton Fire.Stella Kalinina/The Guardian Maccalla moved back home in June after what she viewed as a decent remediation process. But she hasn’t been able to get insurance coverage for additional testing, and worries about how many people are having similar experiences. “We’re putting people back in homes without confirming that they’re free of contamination,” she said. “It feels very unethical and a very dangerous game to be playing.” She couldn’t afford not to come home, and the family couldn’t keep commuting two hours a day each way from their temporary residence to work and school or their Altadena property where Maccalla was overseeing construction. But she’s experienced headaches, her daughter’s asthma is more severe, and her pets have become sick. “I don’t think anybody that hasn’t gone through it can really comprehend what [that is like],” she said. “For everything in your environment that was so beloved to now become a threat is mentally a really hard switch,” she said. Robles settled back to the home she’s lived in for years with a few new additions. Seven of her relatives lost their homes, including her daughter who now lives with her. “I thank God there’s a place for them. That’s all that matters to me.” Nicole Maccalla with her dog, Cami, outside her home in Altadena. Stella Kalinina/The Guardian After the fire, she threw away clothes, bed sheets and pillows. The family mopped and washed the walls. Her insurance was helpful, she said, and covered the cleanup work. Robles tries not to think about the toxic contamination and chemicals that spread during the fire. “You know that saying, what you don’t know?” she said, her voice trailing off. Artin said she received some assistance from her renter’s insurance, but that her landlord hadn’t yet undertaken more thorough remediation. She’s still trying to replace some of the furniture she had to throw away. The fire had come after an already difficult year in which her husband had been laid off, and their finances were stretched. > “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again.” She shudders when she recalls the early aftermath of the fire, a morning sky as dark as night. “It was hell, honestly.” Her rent was set to increase in the new year, and while she fears exposure to unseen dangers, moving isn’t an option. “We don’t have anywhere else to go. We can’t do anything,” Artin said. Fanning has been battling her insurance company to cover the work that is necessary to ensure her house is safely habitable, she said. Her provider is underplaying the amount of work that needs to be done and underbidding the costs, Fanning said. She and her son have been living in a short-term rental since late summer, and she expects they won’t be able to return home before the fall. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll be up to returning at all. Even now, when Fanning drives through the area to come get her mail or check on the house, she gets headaches. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe, no matter all the things that I know and all the things that I’m gonna do. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again.” In between trying to restore her home, she’s focused on advocacy with EFRU, which has become her primary job, albeit unpaid. “There are so many people that don’t have enough insurance coverage, that don’t speak English, that are renters, that don’t have access like I do … I feel it’s my duty as a human.” There’s much work to do, Fanning said, and it has to be done at every single property. “It’s a long road to recovery. And if we don’t do it right, safely, it’s never gonna be what it was before.”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Wildfire smoke is an emerging nationwide crisis for the United States. Supercharged by climate change, blazes are swelling into monsters that consume vast landscapes and entire towns. A growing body of evidence reveals that these conflagrations are killing far more people than previously known, as smoke travels hundreds or even thousands of miles, aggravating conditions like asthma and heart disease. One study, for instance, estimated that last January’s infernos in Los Angeles didn’t kill 30 people, as the official tally reckons, but 440 or more once you factor in the smoke. Another recent study estimated that wildfire haze already kills 40,000 Americans a year, which could increase to 71,000 by 2050. Two additional studies published last month paint an even grimmer picture of the crisis in the US and elsewhere. The first finds that emissions of greenhouse gases and airborne particles from wildfires globally may be 70 percent higher than once believed. The second finds that Canada’s wildfires in 2023 significantly worsened childhood asthma across the border in Vermont. Taken together, they illustrate the desperate need to protect public health from the growing threat of wildfire smoke, like better monitoring of air quality with networks of sensors. The emissions study isn’t an indictment of previous estimates, but a revision of them based on new data. Satellites have spied on wildfires for decades, though in a somewhat limited way—they break up the landscape into squares measuring 500 meters by 500 meters, or about 1,600 feet by 1,600 feet. If a wildfire doesn’t fully fill that space, it’s not counted. This new study increases that resolution to 20 meters by 20 meters (roughly 66 feet by 66 feet) in several key fire regions, meaning it can capture multitudes of smaller fires.  Individually, tinier blazes are not producing as much smoke as the massive conflagrations that are leveling cities in the American West. But “they add up, and add up big time,” said Guido van der Werf, a wildfire researcher at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands and lead author of the paper. “They basically double the amount of burned area we have globally.” > Smaller fires may be less destructive then the behemoths, but they can still > be catastrophic, pouring smoke into populated areas. With the 500-meter satellite data, the previous estimate was around 400 million hectares charred each year. Adding the small fires bumps that up to 800 million hectares, roughly the size of Australia. In some parts of the world, such as Europe and Southeast Asia, burned area triples or even quadruples with this improved resolution. While scientists used to think annual wildfire emissions were around 2 gigatons of carbon, or about a fifth of what humanity produces from burning fossil fuels, that’s now more like 3.4 gigatons with this new estimate. The type of fire makes a huge difference in the emissions, too. A forest fire has a large amount of biomass to burn—brushes, grasses, trees, sometimes even part of the soil—and turn into carbon dioxide and methane and particulate matter, but a grass fire on a prairie has much less. Blazes also burn at dramatically different rates: Flames can race quickly through woodland, but carbon-rich ground known as peat can smolder for days or weeks. Peat fires are so persistent, in fact, that when they ignite in the Arctic, they can remain hidden as snow falls, then pop up again as temperatures rise and everything melts. Scientists call them zombie fires. “It really matters where you’re burning and also how intense the fire can become,” van der Werf said. But why would a fire stay small, when we’ve seen in recent years just how massive and destructive these blazes can get? It’s partly due to fragmentation of the landscape: Roads can prevent them from spreading, and firefighters stop them from reaching cities. And in general, a long history of fire suppression means they’re often quickly extinguished. (Ironically, this has also helped create some monsters, because vegetation builds up across the landscape, ready to burn. This shakes up the natural order of things, in which low-intensity fires from lightning strikes have cleared dead brush, resetting an ecosystem for new growth—which is why Indigenous tribes have long done prescribed burns.) Farmers, too, burn their waste biomass and obviously prevent the flames from getting out of hand.  Whereas in remote areas, like boreal forests in the far north, lightning strikes typically ignite fires, the study found that populated regions produce a lot of smaller fires. In general, the more people dotting the landscape, the more sources of ignition: cigarette butts, electrical equipment producing sparks, even chains dragging from trucks. Yes, these smaller fires are less destructive than the behemoths, but they can still be catastrophic in a more indirect way, by pouring smoke into populated areas. “Those small fires are not the ones that cause the most problems,” van der Werf said. “But of course they’re more frequent, close to places where people live, and that also has a health impact.” That is why the second study on asthma is so alarming. Researchers compared the extremely smoky year of 2023 in Vermont to 2022 and 2024, when skies were clearer. They were interested in PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, from wildfire smoke pouring in from Quebec, Canada. “That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways,” said Anna Maassel, a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. “There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child.” This study, though, looked at the exacerbation of asthma symptoms in children already living with the condition. While pediatric asthma patients typically have fewer attacks in the summer because they’re not in school and constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and other indoor triggers, the data showed that their conditions were much less controlled during the summer of 2023 as huge wildfires burned. (Clinically, “asthma control” refers to milder symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath as well as severe problems like attacks. So during that summer, pediatric patients were reporting more symptoms.) At the same time, climate change is extending growing seasons, meaning plants produce more pollen, which also exacerbates that chronic disease. “All of those factors compound to really complicate what health care providers have previously understood to be a safe time of year for children with asthma,” Maassel said.  Researchers are also finding that as smoke travels through the atmosphere, it transforms. It tends to produce ozone, for instance, that irritates the lungs and triggers asthma. “There’s also the potential for increased formation of things like formaldehyde, which is also harmful to human health. It’s a hazardous air pollutant,” said Rebecca Hornbrook, who studies wildfire smoke at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but wasn’t involved in either study, though a colleague was involved in the emissions one. (Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle NCAR, which experts say could have catastrophic effects.) As wildfires worsen, so too does the public health crisis of smoke, even in places that never had to deal with the haze before. Governments now have to work diligently to protect their people, like improving access to air purifiers, especially in schools. “This is no longer an isolated or geographically confined issue,” Maassel said. “It’s really spreading globally and to places that have never experienced it before.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Flood, storm, and fire survivors gathered in Washington, DC, on Monday to express their alarm over a leaked report from the FEMA Review Council that proposes halving the agency’s workforce and scaling back federal disaster assistance.  Holding images of the devastation wrought by disasters in their communities, more than 80 survivors from 10 states and Puerto Rico gathered at a press conference in the historic Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. There, Brandy Gerstner tearfully recounted the flash floods that destroyed her home and family farm in Sandy Creek, Texas, in July. With little help from the county or state, Gerstner said she and her family were left to navigate the flood’s aftermath on their own. “From the very beginning, it was neighbors and volunteers who showed up. Official help was scarce,” she said. It took search and rescue three days to arrive in Sandy Creek. “By that time, it was search and recovery,” said Gerstner.” Weeks later, after being told that FEMA could help pay for costs not already covered by a small flood insurance payout, her application for federal assistance was denied.  > “‘Passing disaster management to the states’ is code-speak for letting people > suffer and die.” In DC, Gerstner was one of several survivors to condemn the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink FEMA’s scope. “We know what it feels like when emergency systems fall short. Proposals to weaken FEMA should further alarm every American,” said Gerstner. Trump has repeatedly expressed his intention to shift FEMA’s responsibilities to states. In June, he told reporters assembled in the Oval Office that the administration wanted to “wean off of FEMA,” and move many of the agency’s responsibilities to the state level, “so the governors can handle it.” Just weeks into his second term, Trump created the FEMA Review Council, calling for a “full-scale review” of the agency and citing “serious concerns of political bias in FEMA.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth co-chair the council, which is composed almost entirely of Republican federal and state officials. After nearly a year of deliberation, the committee was poised to vote on its final recommendations for the agency’s future at a meeting on Thursday in DC. But the meeting was abruptly cancelled after a draft of the council’s report leaked to news outlets. The White House has not yet set a date for a rescheduled meeting, but the leaked report, which calls for sweeping reductions to FEMA’s staff and scope, sparked immediate backlash from advocacy groups, disaster survivors, and emergency management experts.  > “This is absolutely appalling, and it makes an already difficult disaster > process even more arduous.” In addition to shifting greater responsibility for disaster response and recovery to the states, the report’s recommendations include cutting the FEMA workforce by 50 percent and moving employees out of Washington, DC, over the next two to three years. The report also outlines a block grant system that would streamline the delivery of disaster aid to states within 30 days of a major federal disaster declaration, expediting cash flow while requiring a higher cost share from states. However, fewer disasters might qualify for such federal assistance in the reimagined FEMA. “Federal assistance should only be reserved for truly catastrophic events that exceed [State, Local, Tribal and Territorial] capacity and capability,” the report states, according to CNN. Restricting federal aid could have dire consequences to states already struggling to support disaster victims, said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, executive director of the New Jersey Organizing Project and senior at Organizing Resilience, which hosted the Monday press conference. “‘Passing disaster management to the states’ is code-speak for letting people suffer and die,” said Devecka-Rinear in a statement. This weekend, tens of thousands of residents in Washington state were ordered to evacuate their homes amidst historic rainfall and flooding. Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide emergency and has announced meetings with FEMA to expedite a federal disaster designation and secure critical funding and resources.  If the current precedent holds, that may take weeks. On average, it’s taken more than a month to approve requests for federal disaster designations during Trump’s second term, the Associated Press found. Even once a federal disaster designation is granted, there’s no guarantee of rapid response under the current agency administration, said Abby McIlraith, an emergency management specialist at FEMA.  McIlraith has been on administrative leave since August, when she, along with current and former agency employees, signed the Katrina Declaration, condemning FEMA practices interfering with disaster recovery, including Secretary Noem’s policy of personally reviewing and approving all expenses over $100,000.  “This is absolutely appalling, and it makes an already difficult disaster process even more arduous for the people it serves,” said McIlraith at the Monday press conference. McIlraith, Gerstner and other survivors called for a fully independent FEMA not based within the Department of Homeland Security. “Disasters don’t discriminate, but disaster recovery does,” said Michael McLemore, a St. Louis-based electoral justice organizer and survivor of a deadly May 16 tornado. During the St. Louis tornado, sirens failed to sound across northern parts of the city. The tornado caused $1.6 billion in immediate damage, yet was not declared a major federal disaster until nearly a month later, said McLemore. “You’re here today because this building and this government have failed you,” said New Jersey senator Andy Kim, speaking to the assembled survivors. “There should be accountability, there should be change, there should be real effort. What is more important for our government than to be there for our people in their time of great need?”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Every day when Rajaa Musleh wakes up and checks her phone, she fears she will see news that another member of her family has been killed in Gaza.  Musleh, a nurse and humanitarian worker who evacuated from Gaza to Cairo last year, works at the charity organization Human Concern International delivering food, medicine and other essential aid. Her 75-year-old mother and other family members are still in Gaza, where they face constant dangers: bombing, disease, starvation, medication shortages, and environmental devastation.  “I feel that I am divided into two parts,” Musleh said. “My body is here in Cairo and my soul inside Gaza.” Israeli forces have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians over the past two years and two months, according to official estimates. The United Nations estimates that 90 percent of Gaza’s population is displaced and that 1.5 million people are in urgent need of shelter.  Over the past two years, the UN and global medical and human rights authorities have continuously sounded the alarm on famine and forced starvation in Gaza, widespread environmental destruction, near-constant bombardment and violations of international law, deeming Israel’s assault a genocide. Israel has destroyed Gaza’s water, sewage, and hospital infrastructure and, the UN said, continues to restrict the entrance of food, tents, warm clothes, and life-saving medical supplies, leaving millions without basic necessities.  Now, as multiple reports show Israel violating the latest ceasefire, winter rains are flooding thousands of tents in Gaza amid plummeting temperatures. Escalating environmental destruction, from the impact of chemical weapons to heavily polluted water, make the scale of humanitarian devastation even more apocalyptic.  > “When they announced the ceasefire, it’s just [a] lie. They attack every day, > bombing the people in their tents.” “This war, I call it a climate war,” Musleh said. “It has created catastrophe, an environmental health crisis…and I think this will affect Gaza for generations.” The unusually heavy rains, strong winds, and floods Storm Byron brought to Israel and Gaza this week are making conditions for displaced families even more dire. One baby in Gaza died overnight last week in a cold and flooded tent. “The storm is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis amid the destruction of infrastructure and a lack of resources,” Gaza City Mayor Yahya Al-Sarraj told Al Jazeera.  According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 850,000 people in Gaza are sheltering in 761 displacement sites particularly vulnerable to flooding expected from the storm. Israeli officials have said they expect to see unprecedented rainfall and warned residents to stay inside and watch for signs of hypothermia. Thousands of children in Gaza are experiencing acute malnutrition, while lacking shelter, sanitation, and warm clothing. Flooding rains and lack of access to safe water for drinking and even basic hygiene interventions like handwashing accelerate the rapid spread of disease. Cold weather also increases the body’s energy needs, putting malnourished children with insufficient reserves of fat and muscle at severe risk of hypothermia, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Doctors Without Borders found that diseases linked to poor living conditions, including skin, eye, respiratory, and gastrointestinal diseases, make up 70 percent of outpatient consultations in the organization’s health care clinics in southern Gaza. As winter rains mix with sewage, winter exacerbates the spread of disease. “Without immediate improvements to water, sanitation, shelter and nutrition, more people will die from entirely preventable causes,” the organization wrote in a statement denouncing bloodshed after Israeli strikes on November 19.  In an emailed statement, the Israel Defense Forces said allegations of genocide are “not only unfounded but also ignore Hamas’ violations of international law.” The IDF denied claims it is limiting the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza.  “The IDF remains committed to conducting its operations in accordance with international law,” the statement read, contending that Hamas is not fulfilling its part of the ceasefire agreement, including by killing three Israeli soldiers and not returning all hostages by the deadline. “The IDF is acting in response to threats, violations, and terror infrastructure.” The BBC reported on November 11 that Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, and Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces have killed at least 360 Palestinians and injured more than 900 over the same period. The UN Children’s Fund said on November 21 that at least 67 children had been killed in Gaza since October 10, an average of almost two children slain per day. Hamas has reportedly returned all but one deceased hostage, whose body has not yet been found. Hamas officials have said they have had difficulty locating the bodies of hostages under rubble following Israeli strikes. The UN adopted a resolution this month calling on Israel to comply with international law by ending its “unlawful” occupation in Palestine. The US government continues to funnel billions of dollars to Israel. US and Israeli officials reportedly expect the second phase of the US-brokered Gaza peace plan to begin as soon as this month, while Hamas officials are calling for international pressure on Israel to first fully implement the terms of the plan’s initial phase, including ceasing attacks and ending the aid blockade.  Hala Sabbah, co-founder of The Sameer Project—a mutual-aid organization supplying emergency shelter, food and medical aid in Gaza—is based in London and coordinates donations to colleagues on the ground bringing tents and warm clothes to displaced Gazans. The Sameer Project’s doctors are treating displaced patients with severe injuries and chronic diseases, doing so without basic medical supplies and while also living in hazardous conditions themselves.  “Unless borders open really, really, really soon, we’re just basically seeing a slow genocide where people are dying because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of aid coming in,” Sabbah said. “If this lasts even longer, that means more and more and more deaths.” The Sameer Project is named after Sabbah’s uncle, who she said was killed in an Israeli bombing in 2024. The group is led by Gazans and members of the Palestinian diaspora, like Sabbah. The organization has about 100 team members on the ground, she said, but the scale of need far exceeds their capacity. “What we’re doing, really, is a drop in the ocean,” Sabbah said. “It’s really, really frustrating.” Lena Dajani, who coordinates The Sameer Project’s medical aid work while based in California, described the impact of the rain on displaced families living in makeshift shelters. “They’re drowning in their tents,” Dajani said. “There’s no drainage…There are just rivers of dirty water now, raw sewage, chemicals flooding into tents and destroying the very little that anyone owns.” The flooding with contaminated water is exacerbating gastrointestinal diseases, infections, and chronic coughs, and elevating hypothermia risks, which were already deadly last year. “This winter is going to be catastrophic,” Dajani said.  > View this post on Instagram After the latest ceasefire went into effect on October 10, The Sameer Project saw a drop in donations, Sabbah said, but the dire circumstances on the ground have remained largely unchanged. In late October, a Sameer Project staffer was killed along with 17 relatives in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building they were staying in, Dajani said.  Musleh, with Human Concern International, evacuated Gaza last year after spending 50 days trapped in Al-Shifa Hospital, where she worked as a nurse. Musleh is traumatized by the scenes of carnage she saw at Al-Shifa. When she evacuated in March 2024 she only planned to stay in Cairo for a month before returning to continue her work in Gaza, but she has not been able to get back in. She now coordinates aid to Gaza, including food, warm clothes and hygiene and medical supplies.  But aid is severely restricted. International human rights organizations and aid workers have criticized Israel for keeping healthy food, medical supplies and other essentials out of Gaza. This fall, Musleh said that Israeli authorities removed dates—high in nutrition desperately needed by malnourished children and adults—from Human Concern International’s food aid packages before letting them through. > “There is no electricity, no fans, no ACs, no cold water, no safe places.” Musleh’s mother, who is still in Gaza, suffers from kidney disease, but Musleh’s attempts to send her basic medication have been blocked, she said. She pays $2,000 each month to secure her mother a place in a two-bedroom apartment where 20 people are currently living, just to keep her out of the rain and floods. But there’s nowhere safe from violence, she said. “When they announced the ceasefire, it’s just [a] lie,” Musleh said. “They attack every day, bombing the people in their tents.” Even before October 2023, 97 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was already considered unfit for human consumption, due to a depleted coastal aquifer, over-extraction, nitrate pollution from sewage disposal, saltwater intrusion and the flushing of agricultural fertilizer, according to the UN Environment Programme. Palestinians have long lacked sufficient water access, and in 2012, the UN warned that the Gaza Strip could be unlivable by 2020 if no action was taken to secure clean drinking water as well as energy and sanitation access. Gaza has been under Israeli blockade for nearly two decades, with Israeli authorities significantly restricting residents’ freedom of movement, employment, and ability to access imported goods including food, medical supplies, and fuel. Israel has also restricted and undermined water access in Gaza for decades, including by restricting fuel used to operate desalination plants, overexploiting the coastal aquifer, and deliberately targeting and destroying water and sewage infrastructure, according to water and human rights organizations. Today, none of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants are operational, according to the UN, and just a fraction of the aid needed to sustain its population is allowed through the blockade.  Climate change is making the crisis even more acute, aid workers said. The rain came late and heavy this year, Musleh said, following scorching summer heat. Palestine is in a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, and climate models predict increased temperature highs and lows, as well as exacerbated droughts and floods. Palestine is already seeing significant sea-level rise, which scientists have projected will cause coastal flooding and erosion and continued saltwater intrusion in groundwater aquifers.  In August, Gazan journalist Bisan Owda described the impact of brutal heat over 104 degrees. “There is no electricity, no fans, no ACs, no cold water, no safe places…because of climate issues and because of the intense bombings,” Owda said.  Groups like The Sameer Project are delivering truckloads of water, but once again, the need is far greater than their capacity. “Families have gotten used to drinking brackish water,” Dajani said. “We’re seeing a lot of problems with kidneys because they can’t identify the taste anymore of the salt water.”  Dajani added that her colleagues are seeing kidney inflammation, hepatitis, jaundice, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare and potentially life-threatening condition that can result in paralysis and breathing problems and most commonly follows a viral infection.  In a briefing published on November 27, Amnesty International detailed the extent of the ongoing human rights crisis. “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, in a statement. “The world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.” > “Gaza’s aquifer is contaminated, farmland has been decimated, and sewage seeps > into the soil.” Amidst staggering immediate needs, aid workers are seeing widespread trauma and medical complications that will impact Gaza’s population for generations to come.  Dajani described a child named Ahmed Al Homs, who was hit with tear gas last year, and suffered asphyxiation and brain damage. Now, he is paralyzed, Dajani said. The Sameer Project has been providing care and medications for Al Homs, who lives in the Refaat Alareer Camp, an emergency medical aid site the organization operates in central Gaza.  Doctors are also seeing severe birth complications likely tied to continuous exposure to highly toxic air and water, Dajani and Musleh both said. In a report from September, the UN Environment Programme found that 78 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed, generating about 67 million tons of debris, including rubble that could contain high-risk contaminants like asbestos, industrial waste and heavy metals that Gazans living among the rubble are exposed to. “That’s going to be a whole generation…that are not the proper size for their age, they’re not meeting cognitive milestones,” Dajani said. “An entire generation is going to be affected by this.” In September, the Israel-based Arava Institute for Environmental Studies released a report on the scope of environmental damage in Gaza, detailing the destruction of croplands, desalination plants and wastewater treatment infrastructure, increased air pollution from the burning of solid waste and building materials—including through bombing—and a buildup of hazardous medical waste. More than 80 percent of croplands have been damaged or destroyed, leaving more than 90 percent of Gaza’s population suffering crisis-level food insecurity, the report found.  Fuel shortages and a collapsed power grid further exacerbate water insecurity—experienced by at least 93 percent of households—and prohibit basic activities such as cooking and communication. “What we are witnessing is not just a humanitarian catastrophe but an ecological collapse that threatens the very possibility of recovery,” said David Lehrer, director of the institute’s Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy, in a statement at the report’s release. “Gaza’s aquifer is contaminated, farmland has been decimated, and sewage seeps into the soil, polluting shared groundwater and setting the stage for outbreaks of waterborne disease that could spread beyond Gaza’s borders.” Masum Mahbub, CEO of Human Concern USA—the US affiliate of Human Concern International—emphasized that the depth of environmental devastation in Gaza will impact the humanitarian crisis for years to come. Mahbub described a cycle of harm: emissions from the war exacerbate the climate crisis, which impacts Gaza’s future livability, while the bombardment itself destroys its capacity for resilience. Any effort to rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure will have to prioritize the environment, he said. “The world cannot rebuild Gaza without restoring its land, which takes a long time,” Mahbub said. “The recovery must prioritize environmental remediations, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture…It’s about restoring the ecological foundation of life and dignity.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Zillow, the US’s largest real estate listing site, has removed a feature that allowed people to view a property’s exposure to the climate crisis, following complaints from the industry and some homeowners that it was hurting sales. In September last year, the online real estate marketplace introduced a tool showing the individual risk of wildfire, flood, extreme heat, wind, and poor air quality for 1 million properties it lists, explaining that “climate risks are now a critical factor in home-buying decisions” for many Americans. > “The risk doesn’t go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a > post-purchase liability.” But Zillow has now deleted this climate index after complaints from real estate agents and some homeowners that the rankings appeared arbitrary, could not be challenged, and harmed house sales. The complaints included those from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, which oversees a database of property data that Zillow relies upon. Zillow said it remains committed to help Americans make informed decisions about properties, with listings now containing outbound links to the website of First Street, the nonprofit climate risk quantifier that had provided the on-site tool to Zillow. Matthew Eby, founder and chief executive of First Street, said that removing the climate risk information means that many buyers will be “flying blind” in an era when worsening impacts of extreme weather are warping the real estate market in the United States. “The risk doesn’t go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability,” Eby said. “Families discover after a flood that they should have purchased flood insurance, or discover after the sale that wildfire insurance is unaffordable or unavailable in their area. “Access to accurate risk information before a purchase isn’t just helpful; it’s essential to protecting consumers and preventing lifelong financial consequences.” Eby claimed that the push to delist the First Street ratings from Zillow is linked to a challenging real estate environment, with a lack of affordable housing and repeated climate-driven disasters that are causing insurers to raise premiums or even flee states such as California. “All of that adds pressure to close sales however possible,” he said. “Climate risk data didn’t suddenly become inconvenient. It became harder to ignore in a stressed market.” > “Brokerage firms know they cannot stop the transmission of climate risk > information because climate impacts are already being felt far and wide.” As the US, along with the rest of the world, has heated up due to the burning of fossil fuels, worsening extreme weather events have taken their toll directly upon people’s homes, as well as other infrastructure. Last year, disasters probably amplified by the climate crisis caused $182 billion in damages, one of the highest on record, according to a government database since taken offline by the Trump administration. As a consequence of these mounting risks, the home insurance required for buyers to obtain a mortgage is becoming scarcer and more expensive across much of the US. These changes are running headlong into an opposing trend whereby more Americans are moving to places such as Florida and the Southwest, which are increasingly beset by threats such as ruinous hurricanes and punishing heatwaves. But assigning climate risks to individual properties has been controversial within the real estate industry, as well as some experts who have questioned whether such judgments can be made at such a granular level. Warnings of such perils deterred some buyers, especially if the home was particularly costly anyway. Last year, a sprawling Florida mansion was put on sale for $295 million, making it the most expensive property in the country and in a place also ranked as one of the most at-risk in the US for flooding. After several cuts to the asking price, the house has been taken off the market. Jesse Keenan, an author and expert in climate risk management at Tulane University, said many scientists and economists have argued that “proprietary risk models that provide highly uncertain assessments can have the perverse effect of undermining the public’s confidence in climate science. “There has been a growing bipartisan recognition that the government should play a more active role in supporting and standardizing risk assessment for properties,” Keenan said. “At the same time, the science is limited in its capacity to assess property-by-property assessments. “I do not believe that this is a sign that the brokerage industry is trying to hide climate risks,” he added. “Brokerage firms know they cannot stop the transmission of climate risk information because climate impacts are already being felt far and wide in the sector.” Eby defended First Street’s methods and accuracy, pointing out that the models used were built on peer-reviewed science and validated against real-world outcomes. “So when claims are made that our models are inaccurate, we ask for evidence,” he said. “To date, all the empirical validation shows our science is working as designed and providing better risk insight than the tools the industry has relied on historically.”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. In January, President Donald Trump took office and vowed to abolish the department. Though the administration subsequently slow-walked that proposal, its government-wide staffing cuts have led to a nearly 10 percent reduction in FEMA’s workforce since January. Now it faces a long-awaited report issued by a review council, commissioned by the president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, just as a new interim FEMA chief prepares to take the reins in December.  Although some expected the review council to recommend further cuts or try to fulfill the president’s suggestion of disbanding FEMA entirely, a leaked draft of the report, obtained by the New York Times, recommends preserving the agency. “There’s been a need for emergency management reform for a while,” said Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, a professor at the Columbia Climate School and the director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “But the wrecking balls came in before there was a blueprint for what to do.” The Trump administration’s first pick to lead FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, was fired after telling Congress that the agency should not be eliminated. Richardson was tapped to replace him, despite a lack of emergency management experience; he reportedly told staff members he had been unaware the United States had a hurricane season, although he later claimed to be joking. “There’s been a lot of mistrust with expertise in this administration,” said Schlegelmilch, when asked why Richardson was chosen as FEMA administrator.  Richardson’s first test in the national spotlight came in early July, when devastating floods struck Central Texas, killing 135 people. A month earlier, Noem had instituted a new rule requiring her personal sign-off on any FEMA expenditures over $100,000. That meant that, in order to get aid to the region, FEMA officials needed Richardson to get Noem’s approval. But according to reporting from the Washington Post, Richardson made a habit of not checking his phone outside of traditional working hours. This made it a challenge to contact him when the floods hit over the July 4 holiday weekend. As a result, it took over three days for Noem to sign off on expenses for swiftwater rescue teams. It was also later reported that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA’s emergency assistance line went unanswered during the floods, because a critical call center was severely understaffed. A final recommendation on suggested FEMA reforms will arrive by the end of the year, but a leaked draft report supports preserving the agency and restoring it to a cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the president, rather than to the Department of Homeland Security, where it’s been housed since 2003. This has been a longtime goal pursued by emergency management experts, according to Schlegelmilch, because it would give the department more autonomy, reduce red tape, and hopefully improve the speed and efficacy of disaster response in general. A bipartisan bill called the FEMA Act of 2025, which would elevate the department to a cabinet-level agency, was introduced in Congress in July, but it’s stalled in committee. How the administration will receive the final report from the task force is uncertain, but FEMA’s new interim director, Karen Evans, may not bring much stability to the agency. Although Evans has some emergency management experience, it is largely in cybersecurity rather than disaster response, and the Trump administration’s disinterest in appointing a permanent director may bode poorly for the agency’s long-term future.  “This is the third acting FEMA administrator within a year,” said Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What the Trump administration is doing is sidestepping the Senate confirmation process for a FEMA administrator, someone we just desperately need in place, given how turbulent it’s been over the past year.” 

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. History is unfolding in the Atlantic Ocean right now. Hurricane Melissa has spun up into an extraordinarily dangerous Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph, and is set to strike Jamaica Monday night before marching toward Cuba. This is only the second time in recorded history that an Atlantic hurricane season has spawned three hurricanes in that category. Melissa has already killed at least three people in Haiti and another in the Dominican Republic. The threats to Jamaica will come from all sides. The island could see up to 30 inches of rain as the storm squeezes moisture from the sky, like a massive atmospheric sponge, potentially causing “catastrophic flash flooding and numerous landslides,” according to the National Hurricane Center. Melissa also will bulldoze ashore a storm surge of up to 13 feet—essentially a wall of water that will further inundate coastal areas. “No one living there has ever experienced anything like what is about to happen,” writes Brian McNoldy, a hurricane scientist at the University of Miami. > Research has shown a huge increase in rapid intensification events close to > shore, thanks to rising ocean temperatures. It will take some time for scientists to determine exactly how much climate change supercharged Melissa, but they can already say that the storm has been feeding on warm ocean temperatures made up to 800 times more likely by global heating. This is how climate change is worsening these tropical cyclones overall: The hotter the ocean gets—the seas have absorbed 90 percent of the extra heat that humans have pumped into the atmosphere—the more energy that can transfer into a storm. “The role climate change has played in making Hurricane Melissa incredibly dangerous is undeniable,” Marc Alessi, a climate attribution science fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.  Scientists can already estimate that climate change has increased Melissa’s wind speeds by 10 mph, in turn increasing its potential damage by 50 percent. “We’re living in a world right now where human-caused climate change has changed the environment in which these hurricanes are growing up and intensifying,” said Daniel Gilford, a climate scientist at the research group Climate Central. “Increasing temperatures of the atmosphere is increasing how much moisture is in the atmosphere, which will allow Melissa to rain more effectively and efficiently over the Caribbean, and could cause more flooding than otherwise would have occurred.”  Making Melissa extra dangerous is the fact that it’s undergone rapid intensification, defined as a jump in sustained wind speeds of at least 35 mph in a day, having doubled its speed from 70 to 140 mph in less than 24 hours. This makes a hurricane all the more deadly not only because stronger winds cause more damage, but because it can complicate disaster preparations—officials might be preparing for a weaker storm, only to suddenly face one far worse. Research has shown a huge increase in the number of rapid intensification events close to shore, thanks to those rising ocean temperatures, with Atlantic hurricanes specifically being twice as likely now to rapidly intensify. At the same time, hurricanes are able to produce more rainfall as the planet warms. For one, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture per degree Celsius of warming. And secondly, the faster the wind speeds, the more water a hurricane can wring out, like spinning a wet mop. Accordingly, hurricanes can now produce 50 percent more precipitation because of climate change. “A more intense hurricane has stronger updrafts and downdrafts, and the amount of efficiency by which the storm can rain basically scales with how intense the storm is,” Gilford said. Making matters worse, Melissa is a rather slow-moving storm, so it will linger over Jamaica, inundating the island and buffeting it with winds. As Melissa drops rain from above, its winds will shove still more water ashore as a storm surge. The coastlines of the Caribbean have already seen significant sea level rise, which means levels are already higher than before. (Warmer oceans have an additional effect here, as hotter water takes up more space, a phenomenon known as thermal expansion.) All of this means the baseline water levels are already higher, which the storm surge will pile on top of. “Just small, incremental, marginal changes in sea level can really drive intense changes,” Gilford said.  Jamaica has an added challenge in its mountainous terrain. Whereas water will accumulate on flat terrain, it behaves much more unpredictably when it’s rushing downhill because it easily gains momentum. “When you get a storm like this that is approaching the higher echelons of what we have observed, it’s harrowing, especially because it is pointing at a populated island with complex terrain,” said Kim Wood, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Arizona. “You’re dealing with a funneling effect, where that water, as it falls, will then join other water that’s coming down the mountainside and exacerbate the impacts.” Maybe the only good news here is that the National Hurricane Center was able to accurately predict that Melissa would rapidly intensify. And in general, scientists have gotten ever better at determining how climate change is supercharging hurricanes, so they can provide ever more accurate warnings to places like Jamaica. But that requires continuous governmental support for this kind of work, while the Trump administration has slashed scientific budgets and jobs. “We couldn’t do this without continued investment in the enterprise that supports advances in not just science, but forecasting and communicating the outcomes of those forecasts,” Wood said.

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Michael Gillogly, manager of the Pepperwood Preserve, understands the wildfire risk that power lines pose firsthand. The 3,200-acre nature reserve in Sonoma County, California, burned in 2017 when a privately owned electrical system sparked a fire. It burned again in 2019 during a conflagration started by power lines operated by utility Pacific Gas & Electric. So when PG&E approached Gillogly about installing a solar- and battery-powered microgrid to replace the single power line serving a guest house on the property, he was relieved.  “We do a lot of wildfire research here,” he noted. Getting rid of  “the line up to the Bechtel House is part of PG&E’s work on eliminating the risk of fire.” PG&E covered the costs of building the microgrid, and so far, the solar and batteries have kept the light and heat on at the guest house, even when a dozen or so researchers spent several cloudy days there, Gillogly said. Over the past few years, PG&E has increasingly opted for these  “remote grids” as the costs of maintaining long power lines in wildfire-prone terrain skyrocket and the price of solar panels, batteries, and backup generators continues to decline. The utility has installed about a dozen systems in the Sierra Nevada high country, with the Pepperwood Preserve microgrid the first to be powered 100 percent by solar and batteries. The utility plans to complete more than 30 remote grids by the end of next year. Until recently, utilities have rarely promoted solar-and-battery alternatives to power lines, particularly if they don’t own the solar and batteries in question. After all, utilities earn guaranteed profits on the money they spend on their grids. But PG&E’s remote-grid initiative, launched with regulator approval in 2023, allows it to earn a rate of return on these projects that’s similar to what it would earn on the grid upgrades required to provide those customers with reliable power. The catch is that the costs of installing and operating the solar panels and batteries and maintaining and fueling the generators must be lower than what the utility would have spent on power lines. “It all depends on what the alternative is,” said Abigail Tinker, senior manager of grid innovation delivery at PG&E. For the communities the utility has targeted, power lines can be quite expensive, largely due to the cost of ensuring that they won’t cause wildfires. PG&E was forced into bankruptcy in 2019 after its power lines sparked California’s deadliest-ever wildfire, and the company is under state mandate to prevent more such disasters. PG&E and California’s other major utilities are spending tens of billions of dollars on burying key power lines, clearing trees and underbrush, and protecting overhead lines with hardened coverings, hair-trigger shutoff switches, and other equipment. But these wildfire-prevention investments are driving up utility expenditures and customer rates. Solar and batteries are an increasingly cost-effective alternative, Tinker said, with the benefits outweighing the price tag of having to harden as little as a mile of power lines. PG&E saves money either by getting rid of grid connections altogether or by delaying the construction of new lines. Microgrids can also improve reliability for customers when utilities must intentionally de-energize the lines that serve them during windstorms and other times of high wildfire risk—an increasingly common contingency in fire-prone areas. Angelo Campus, CEO of BoxPower, which built most of PG&E’s remote microgrids, sees the strategy penciling out for more and more utilities for these same reasons. “We’re working with about a dozen utilities across the country on similar but distinct flavors of this,” he said.  “Wildfire mitigation is a huge issue across the West,” and climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of the threat. Utilities are responsible for about 10 percent of wildfires. But they’re bearing outsized financial risks from those they do cause. Portland, Oregon-based PacifiCorp is facing billions of dollars in costs and $30 billion in claims for wildfires sparked by its grid in 2020, and potentially more for another fire in 2022. Hawaiian Electric paid a $2 billion settlement to cover damages from the deadly 2023 Maui fires caused by its grid. Microgrids can’t replace the majority of a utility’s system, of course. But they are being considered for increasingly large communities, Campus said. Nevada utility NV Energy has proposed a solar and battery microgrid to replace a diesel generator system now providing backup power to customers in the mountain town of Mt. Charleston. Combining solar and batteries with  “ruggedized” overhead lines should save about $21 million compared to burying power lines underground, while limiting impacts of wildfire-prevention power outages, according to the utility. Some larger projects have already been built. San Diego Gas & Electric has been running a microgrid for the rural California town of Borrego Springs since 2013, offering about 3,000 residents backup solar, battery, and generator power to bolster the single line that connects them to the larger grid, which is susceptible to being shut off due to wildfire risk. Duke Energy built a microgrid in Hot Springs, North Carolina, a town of about 535 residents served by a single 10-mile power line prone to outages, on the grounds that it was cheaper than building a second line to improve reliability. In each of these cases, utilities must weigh the costs of the alternatives, Tinker said.  “It’s complicated and nuanced in terms of dollars per mile, because you have to be able to do the evaluation of individual circuits, and what can be done to mitigate the risk for each circuit,” she said. Whether microgrids are connected to the larger grid or not, utilities need to maintain communications links with them to ensure the systems are operating reliably and safely. PG&E is working with New Sun Road, a company that provides remote monitoring and control technology, to keep its far-flung grids in working order. It’s important to distinguish remote microgrids built and operated by utilities from other types of microgrids. Solar, batteries, backup generators, and on-site power controls are also being used by electric-truck charging depots and industrial facilities that don’t want to wait for utilities to expand their grids to serve them. Microgrids are also providing college campuses, military bases, municipal buildings, and churches and community centers with backup power when the grid goes down and with self-supplied power to offset utility bills when the grid is up and running. Utilities have been far less friendly to customer-owned microgrids in general, however, seeing them as a threat to their core business model. Since 2018, California law has required the state Public Utilities Commission to develop rules to allow customers to build their own microgrids. But progress has been painfully slow, and only a handful of grant-funded projects have been completed. Microgrid developers and advocates complain that the commission has put too many restrictions on how customers who own microgrids can earn money for the energy they generate when the grid remains up and running. Utilities contend that they need to maintain control over the portions of their grid that connect to microgrids to avoid creating more hazards. “It is a very difficult balance that PG&E is constantly trying to strike, with the oversight of [utility regulators] and other stakeholders, between safety and reliability and affordability,” Tinker said.  “That’s something we’re trying to thread the needle on.” But as the costs of expanding and maintaining utility grids continue to climb, and solar and batteries become more affordable, utilities and their customers are likely to see more opportunities to make microgrids work, Campus said. “The cost of building poles and wires and maintaining distribution infrastructure has grown substantially over the past 20 years,” he said.  “Look at the cost of distributed generation and battery—it’s an inverse cost curve.” 

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In early July, flash floods along the Guadalupe River killed 138 people and caused an estimated $1.1 billion in damage, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in Texas history. But just a week later, Texas found itself whiplashed into another crisis altogether: a high-stakes battle over voting districts.  As floodwaters receded and communities struggled to recover, President Donald Trump publicly demanded that Texas lawmakers redraw congressional maps to carve out five additional US House seats for Republicans. The twin pressures of a devastating natural disaster and Trump’s insistence prompted Governor Greg Abbott to convene a special legislative session.  During the first special legislative session, which began on July 21, Abbott tasked lawmakers with addressing 18 agenda items, including four related to flood preparedness. Lawmakers responded by introducing a flurry of bills that would require stricter building codes for youth camps in floodplains, shore up emergency communications, and create new relief funds. But the session quickly devolved as the political fight over redistricting overshadowed urgent conversations about how to better protect Texans from future floods. Over the next week, as partisan battles over redistricting intensified and Democrats fled the state for two weeks to deny Republicans a quorum, those measures stalled. Eventually, the session ended on August 15 with the Democrats still out of state, the flood legislation stranded on the floor, and both parties accusing the other of holding disaster relief funds hostage. Abbott called lawmakers back to Austin for a second special session. This time, Democrats returned, and lawmakers managed to pass a more narrowly tailored flood relief package through the Texas Senate. One bill proposes that the state direct $294 million to flood preparedness and recovery, including money to match FEMA aid; install outdoor warning sirens in vulnerable communities; expand river and rainfall forecasting tools; and build a swift-water training facility for first responders. > “Today marks 43 days since the flood—43 days without emergency aid from the > state.” Other bills require campgrounds in floodplains to develop evacuation plans and direct state agencies to determine which parts of Central Texas require flood warning sirens. Several others are in the early stages of consideration in the Texas House. But disaster recovery experts said that while these measures are an important step to assist Central Texas communities recovering from the July floods, they are too narrowly focused on the most recent disaster. For instance, instead of confronting tougher questions about whether summer camps should be built along rivers prone to flash flooding at all, the proposed Senate Bill 2 simply requires camps in floodplains to adopt evacuation plans, implement them when flash flood alerts are sent, and provide ladders for emergency rooftop access in cabins located within the flood zone. “They’re trying to stick a band-aid on the issue and say they did something,” said Julia Orduña, the Southeast Texas regional director at Texas Housers, a nonprofit advocating for fair and affordable housing. “We haven’t been able to dive into the [disaster recovery] conversation because of redistricting. The state is trying to say they did something to respond to the loss of life, especially because we lost so many children.” Orduña said the legislature was being shortsighted in its approach by focusing on relief measures squarely tailored to the Independence Day floods. The narrower focus is likely a result of the time pressure to move bills forward and the fact that so much political capital is being expended in the redistricting fight.  At a press conference last week, Texans affected by the floods implored Abbott to release emergency relief funds. Kylie Nidever, a flood survivor from Hunt, an unincorporated town among the worst hit by the flash floods, called on Abbott to use his emergency budget authority. “Today marks 43 days since the flood,” she said. “Forty-three days without emergency aid from the state.” Because Abbott issued a disaster proclamation after the floods, he has the authority to redirect state funds to assist with debris removal, provide mental health resources for residents, and distribute other aid. He has used this authority in the past for Hurricane Harvey recovery and to fund border wall construction. “We need to be able to decouple these emergency funds from the political theater and the power grab, which is now intertwined with redistricting,” said state representative Armando Walle, a Democrat from Houston, at the press conference. “It’s a travesty we’re having to do this.” Abbott, in turn, has blamed Texas Democrats for leaving the state and “abscond[ing] from their responsibility. As the fight over redistricting continues to play out, relief measures hang in the balance, and flood victims have become pawns in the blame game.  “We are not asking for handouts,” said Nidever. “We’re asking for a government that works.” 

This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. First came the drought. After three years without significant rain, northern New Mexico’s dense forests of spruce, fir and ponderosa pines were baked to a crisp. Then came the spark—a prescribed burn lit by the US Forest Service in April 2022. It was supposed to reduce wildfire risk but instead got out of control, eventually becoming the largest wildfire in state history.  After the prescribed burn escaped its perimeter, it was dubbed the Hermit’s Peak Fire. Then it merged with the Calf Canyon Fire, a “sleeper” fire from January pile burns, in the hills above Las Vegas, New Mexico. (This is rare: Prescribed burns evade control and turn into wildfires only about 1 percent of the time, according to the Forest Service.)   > “It feels like I’m running a restaurant through the apocalypse” In June, rain finally fell—not enough to douse the flames, but enough to send rivers of soot, ash, and mud racing into downstream communities and homes. That put drinking water sources at risk, including private wells and a water treatment plant that was unable to turn the sludgy, contaminated water into anything safe to drink. Firefighters contained the 340,000-acre fire in August. Now, three years later, people living in the burn scar and the roughly 13,000 residents of Las Vegas, less than 10 miles from the edge of the burn, still intermittently have trouble accessing clean drinking water. The ongoing problems expose how local, state and federal systems aren’t set up to deal with the long recovery times for increasingly large and destructive wildfires. Las Vegas will remain vulnerable to flooding and drinking water will be at risk for at least the next five to 10 years, until shrubs regrow enough to help stabilize sloppy hillsides and scorched soil can hold moisture again. Now everyone holds their breath when summer monsoon season rolls around. That June 2022 flood wasn’t the only disastrous deluge the community experienced even as the fire was still burning. In July, at least 2-4 inches of rain fell on ashy, water-repellant soil in just a few hours. A torrent of water raced downstream, surging into steep canyons and filling the Gallinas River with a chocolaty sludge of burned trees, dirt, and pine needles.   Flash flooding killed three people, washed out roads, and overpowered the city’s water treatment plant, which was not designed to handle post-wildfire conditions. Whenever floods pour dirt and ash into the river that feeds the city’s three reservoirs, the plant automatically shuts off to prevent permanent damage. Then, last summer, it happened again: Heavy monsoonal rainstorms triggered more flooding, causing debris flows that left the water treatment plant unusable for roughly two weeks. It was intermittently shut down for months afterward, forcing city officials to close all nonessential businesses before the busiest weekend of the year, the annual Fourth of July Fiesta, which was cancelled.  The turbidity in some water samples—a measure of their clarity—was 200 times higher than federal drinking water standards. Locals were asked to limit their water use; businesses faced penalties if they didn’t comply. “It feels like I’m running a restaurant through the apocalypse,” said Isaac Sandoval, a Las Vegas local and owner of The Skillet restaurant. “It’s just one thing after another.” > “People are asking, ‘Is it safe to live here?’ ” The solution is a new facility that can handle muddy, debris-filled water, and will cost over $100 million. But disaster recovery moves slowly. Despite $4 billion in congressionally approved fire relief and additional FEMA funding, design delays mean a new plant won’t open for at least four to six more years, according to Mayor David Romero.  In the meantime, maintaining the existing plant has cost Las Vegas $1 million over the last six months. And the city’s water still isn’t always clean. The New Mexico Environment Department’s Drinking Water Bureau has cited the city for violating state drinking water standards almost 60 times since 2023.   The effects of all this ripple throughout the community. Water shortages stress city firefighters. Closed businesses require more police patrols. Paper plates—dishwashing isn’t possible without clean water—and an estimated 1.2 million plastic water bottles burden the city’s garbage disposal system. Other communities could face similar problems. More than 60 million people in the United States get their drinking water from streams that flow from the nation’s 193 million acres of national forests. Proactive thinning is underway in high-risk watersheds, including the one supplying Butte, Montana, as HCN reported last year.  And some rural areas, like Lake Madrone, California, have already paid the price. The 2020 North Complex Fire contaminated water pipes with toxic VOCs and trihalomethanes. More than four years later, residents of the 60 or so houses that didn’t burn down are still drinking from water tanks in their yards, dependent on truck deliveries for refills. FEMA denied the Lake Madrone Water District’s $8 million request to rebuild its water system, and the community can’t afford to replace the piping on its own.  Chaos at FEMA—in June, President Donald Trump said he wanted to phase out the agency and “give out less money” for disaster relief—will hurt the next community ravaged by a similar catastrophe. (So far, the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire recovery funds have not been cut.) “It is unacceptable that the Trump administration is attempting to gut FEMA—making us less prepared for the next crisis,” New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján said in an emailed statement.  Cyn Palmer and I stepped over the sandbags that still line the front door of her small townhome in Rociada, New Mexico, in April. Rociada is in the foothills about 30 minutes northwest of Las Vegas, due north of Hermit’s Peak and flanked by a horseshoe-shaped ridgeline. Snow blanketed the ground and the thousands of burnt trees that ring the valley resembled charred toothpicks. Many of her neighbors and friends lost their houses, and the community center and bar where Palmer, a retired wildlife manager, once picked up shifts burned down as well.  Palmer’s house has been through the wringer: Soot damage is still visible on its white walls despite cleaning, and repeated flooding has left mold in its wake. But one of her primary concerns is water. The rural communities scattered north of Las Vegas lack municipal water treatment plants; instead, residents rely on wells, either individual wells or community wells that serve a cluster of homes.  Floods can loosen well hardware and erode pump components. They can also ferry toxic runoff from burned areas into well water, contaminating it with chemicals, bacteria or microorganisms that require disinfection and flushing. “People are asking, ‘Is it safe to live here?’” Palmer said. “A lot of people don’t fully trust this water. I don’t trust the water.”  Palmer’s tap water comes from a community well owned and operated by the Pendaries Village Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association. The association assured Palmer that, after repairs, its wells were safe and uncontaminated by flooding, but it refused to share immediate test results with her. > “I’m so concerned about the water,” Pacheco said. “How toxic is it?” When Palmer tried to take advantage of free water quality testing from the New Mexico Environment Department, she recalls being told that her sample had been tossed out because the community well had already been tested by the association. (Department spokesperson Muna Habib said some testing events only focus on private or public, not always community, wells.)  Palmer also worries that the pipes that carry water from the well across the valley floor to her house were superheated during the fire. Radiant heat can cause plastic pipes to leach benzene and other toxic volatile organic compounds into water. To this day, the water she drinks and brushes her teeth with comes from a ceramic dispenser on her kitchen counter or bottles of water. She refills 3-to-5-gallon jugs in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where she also receives medical care for an anemia autoimmune disorder that developed after the fire. “There’s no point in taking a chance on this water, when you think about all the toxins that went into the watershed,” Palmer said. She’s tripped over sandbags repeatedly, once hurting herself and another time breaking a water jug. The scope of the private well problem is not fully known, but the roughly 75-100 households who live in and around Rociada get their water from wells. “I worry about people that haven’t gotten sick yet,” Palmer said.  A few miles up the road from Palmer, Laura and Luis Silva live with six family members and run a small herd of cattle. Both sides of their families have lived here for five-plus generations. Manuelitas Creek, which runs through the Silvas’ property, is usually only a few feet wide. Since July 2022, however, it occasionally swells up to 75 feet wide and 12 feet deep, washing out driveways, damaging septic tanks, stock ponds and culverts, and pinning logs and other debris on fences.  The Silvas believe that chemicals from burned homes and fire retardant, which contain toxic heavy metals, ended up in the floodwaters that their cattle drank. It’s difficult to know how much fire retardant was released overall during the months-long fire, but 28,000 gallons were dropped on one day in May 2022. That year, several calves were born prematurely, small and without any fur. “We’ve never seen that before,” Laura Silva said. The calves didn’t survive.  It cost the family $575 to have their well tested for a variety of contaminants in March 2023, which they said FEMA didn’t reimburse. “People haven’t had their wells tested because they can’t afford it,” Laura Silva said. (In a statement attributed to Jay Mitchell, director of operations, FEMA disputed this and said private well testing was eligible for reimbursement before the fire claims reimbursement deadline of March 14.)   They’re concerned a septic tank damaged by flooding may be contaminating their water, an even more expensive problem to fix without FEMA’s help. So for now, they drink their water and hope there’s nothing wrong.  Some 40 miles south, in the mountains south of Hermit’s Peak, Michael Pacheco lives on 100 acres that were once covered with piñon pines, cedars and juniper trees. Most of them burned, and now, when it rains, water runs right off the soil, rather than soaking in. Pacheco, who is a minimalist, has never had running water at his trailer. But he used to draw as much water as he wanted from a nearby well. Now, it runs out after 30 gallons.  When we met for an afternoon lemonade in Las Vegas, Pacheco pulled up in an old turquoise truck. There was a 300-gallon plastic tank strapped in the back, and he planned to fill it with potable water before heading back to the hills. “I’m so concerned about the water,” Pacheco said. “How toxic is it?” The 2024 summer flooding kept Pacheco, who’s cut off from town by Tecolote Creek, from turning in water quality samples to the New Mexico Environment Department for free testing on time.    Though Pacheco lives dozens of miles away from Palmer and the Silvas, they share similar concerns: lingering chemical contamination from fire retardant and the lack of testing of private wells and surrounding waterways. Pacheco has fought environmental battles in the past, protesting and organizing against fracking and mining efforts in the region. “I’ve been an activist since I was a little boy,” he said. Now, safe drinking water is his next fight. He’s started pestering the city, the state, and the federal government to help fund testing and any cleanup necessary to ensure clean water. “It’s time to heal,” he said. “I’m going to help turn this all around.”     Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources.