Wildfires
Site news
-
Two new reports could help decision-makers allocate resources to mitigate the health impacts of wildfire in public TK-12 schools in California.
-
Stanford researchers examined how often Californians visit emergency departments and found that people tend to avoid the hospital on the smokiest days.
-
Stanford research reveals the rapidly growing influence of wildfire smoke on air quality trends across most of the United States. Wildfire smoke in recent years has slowed or reversed progress toward cleaner air in 35 states, erasing a quarter of gains made since 2000.
-
Stanford research finds low-income communities in California face a “wildfire safety deficit” as a result of longstanding policies about who should pay to move power lines underground.
-
Understanding the physics of wind currents above forest canopies may help wildfire managers forecast the flight paths of dangerous burning embers, or firebrands, which are responsible for most home destruction during wildfires.
-
Climate change and decades of fire suppression have fueled increasingly destructive wildfires across the western U.S. and Canada. Stanford scholars and wildfire experts outline how a path forward requires responsive management, risk reduction, and Indigenous stewardship.
-
Pollution from wildfires is linked to lower test scores and possibly lower future earnings for kids growing up with more smoke days at school, a new study finds. Impacts of smoke exposure on earnings are disproportionately borne by economically disadvantaged communities of color.
-
Controlled burning has proven effective at reducing wildfire risks, but a lack of insurance has dissuaded private landowners from implementing the practice. Policy expert Michael Wara discusses soon-to-be-enacted legislation that would pay for fire damages to neighboring properties in California.
-
Stanford researchers have developed an AI model for predicting dangerous particle pollution to help track the American West’s rapidly worsening wildfire smoke. The detailed results show millions of Americans are routinely exposed to pollution at levels rarely seen just a decade ago.
-
Surveys of people exposed to wildfires and hurricanes show that negative experiences with these events are associated with elevated perceived risk for specific climate hazards and self-reported adaptation behaviors, as well as increased support for interventions. The findings could help shape public communications and policy.
-
Rapidly growing communities in the American West’s forests and shrublands are nestled in zones where local soil and plant traits amplify the effect of climate change on wildfire hazards and lead to bigger burns.
-
Stanford Law School’s Professor Buzz Thompson, one of the country’s leading water law experts, discusses California’s wildfires, drought, water, and climate change with Stanford Legal on SiriusXM co-hosts Professors Joseph Bankman and Richard Thompson Ford.
