I often note that CA seismic codes are required everywhere, even far from fault lines, and argue we should do the same for wildfire. Even though this was only a small shake here in Fresno, I felt it 175 miles away. Hazards travel and have far-reaching effects!

As a fire scientist, I am devastated for my many good friends and colleagues who will be affected by the mass closure of so many research stations and offices. Many will leave the agency. USFS has pioneered so much foundational fire science. The consequences of this will be catastrophic.

The presser was to confuse everyone and bury the announcement about dismantling the US Forest Service. "the Forest Service will begin transitioning to a state-based organizational model..." HQ in Utah. The state that sued for state control over Public Lands. www.usda.gov/about-usda/n...

When I was in my 20s and spent thousands of hours driving all over the country, I had ample time to listen to a LOT of music. Todd Snider was a poet of a songwriter whose lyrics and rambling stories between songs made the miles go by quickly. One of my favorites. RIP.

Published today: our new paper showing a 44-year trend of increasing global wildfire disasters (fatalities and economic losses) due to climate change-induced extreme weather. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We have a 5.9kW solar system for 2,700 sq ft house in HOT 🥵 Fresno, CA. We charge a plug-in hybrid daily. Current house: $24/yr for electricity (PG&E) Old house (no solar): >$6,000/yr Our $20K system is paid for in ~3 yrs. Solar is a scientific miracle. www.motherjones.com/environment/...

It's 2025, and it's still climate change driving major forest loss through wildfires. With insights from @climate-guy.bsky.social and @calxcunningham.bsky.social @ucmerced.bsky.social @utas.edu.au www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/c...

I've been calling myself a pyrogeographer for over two decades, and now we have a journal just for us, led by the fantastic @mattwjones.bsky.social (full disclosure: I sit on the editorial board). We warmly invite you to submit to #Pyrogeography today! www.sciencedirect.com/journal/jour...

Happy to share our new paper: we show that human-caused climate change is raising the odds of extreme climate-driven fire years across forested regions of the globe @climate-guy.bsky.social @pyrogeog.bsky.social rdcu.be/evJkX #ClimateChange #Wildfires

Also, if you're not following @mattwjones.bsky.social please give him a follow. He's the Editor-In-Chief of the new journal Pyrogeography!

More amazing teamwork led by the fantastic @mattwjones.bsky.social to develop a global database of prescribed fire.

My theory: some DOGE minion Googled "Hatch Act" and saw the 1939 law preventing political actions by govt employees and said "Let's cut it!" Not realizing, of course, that the 1887 Hatch Act funds agricultural research at Land Grant schools that directly benefits farmers.🙄

Spent a delightful week in Vienna last month for EGU. What a model for people (not car)-oriented living! 1) Huge car-free areas in the historic city center 2) Amazing public transit system (my 10-yr olds LOVED the subway) 3) Phenomenal bike paths Rating: 14/10 - I would live there! #waroncars

feels like a good day to re-up this reporting. “Every single state in the US where we have vegetation, and particularly where we have vegetation intermixing with communities, we have the potential for extreme fire disasters,” @pyrogeog.bsky.social www.vox.com/climate/2386...

TOMORROW! There's still time to register: 1pm - Introductions and talk by John Mills of @watchduty.org 2pm - A look ahead at the 2025 Fire Season in CA with @climate-guy.bsky.social 2:15pm - Mitigating smoke with Dr. Sandie Ha 2:30pm - Q&A with all speakers MEDIA is welcome. Please join us!

Climate change continued to have unpredictable impacts on wildfire in 2024. Unexpected shifts, like the Americas producing 40% of C emissions (normally it's <25%), and anomalous events, like the fatal Feb '24 Chile fire or the Pantanal wetlands burning, occur more often.

Kolden et al. document 2024 wildfires, finding: - 367 Mha burned - Burned area decreased 5.4% from 2023 - Fires released an estimate 1965 Tg C www.nature.com/articles/s43... (rdcu.be/ehnTP) @pyrogeog.bsky.social @climate-guy.bsky.social @mattwjones.bsky.social @ueaenv.bsky.social [6/n]

On 4/17 @ucmerced.bsky.social Fire Resilience Center will host John Mills, CEO and co-founder of @watchduty.org AND have discussion with @climate-guy.bsky.social and Dr. Sandie Ha on: 1) The upcoming fire season in CA 2) How you can prepare, esp. for smoke We're streaming it online - join us!

This is your regular reminder that ALL buildings in California must build to seismic codes, but only those in CALFIRE's designated high hazard areas must build to WUI fire codes. Why the discrepancy? Who the hell knows...but it means the cycle of rebuild and burn again will continue.

Ed Abbey words to live by: “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” “Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.” “Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.”

Worried about wildfires this year? You should be. Preparedness is the absolutely most effective way to mitigate disasters, and the firing of thousands of employees and hiring freeze means that there is almost no one to prepare. WHEN wildfires start (not if), suppression will be a mess.

"Training is preparation for the known; education is preparation for the unknown." Just remember that we train AI, but we educate humans.

Out today in @globalchangebio.bsky.social is our (brief!) rapid-response piece on the broader context surrounding the January 2025 Southern California wildfires & relevance of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash to fire both locally and globally on a warming Earth. [1/8] onlinelibrary.wiley....

Wanted to reshare the webinar event associated with this white paper release. You can watch the event here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkAP... All of the messages discussed by me and the panelists require greater focus after what we have just experienced.

🔥 Fire peeps... @wildland-zko.bsky.social joined us. Give him a follow.

I am shocked* that the Trillion Trees guy ends up being a problem dude. They won't comment, but anyone with that kind of funding record doesn't get let go without doing something VERY, VERY BAD. *Note: I am not shocked at all

Access damage info directly from the incident pages: #PalisadesFire details | www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/20... #EatonFire details | www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/20... We’re here to support you on the road to recovery. Stay safe and informed!

In Sept 2020, in the wake of a record CA fire season, I wrote an opinion piece for @nature.com about the need to focus on the human metrics of fire, not the acres burned. The #LAFires underscore that our obsession with size fails to convey the scope of the impacts. 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/d41....

An important facet of the fire building code discussion is that it only applies to areas that CALFIRE deems high fire hazard; it's not blanket. Many urban homes burned in recent years were't included. For seismic codes, every house in the state must comply no matter how far from a fault line.

The @calfire.bsky.social DINS program is the best post-fire data collection program in the world. I wish every state would adopt this, we would learn so much more. Structure losses (so far) for #PalisadesFire: recovery.lacounty.gov/palisades-fi... For #EatonFire: recovery.lacounty.gov/eaton-fire/

To journalists who contact me last week and I wasn't able to respond...my sincere apologies. I lost my voice the week of the worst wildfire disaster ever in LA (didn't have that on my 2025 bingo card!). Many thanks to those of you asking the questions that help us become more resilient.

Appreciate the opportunity to chat w/ @nytimes.com about how we can build smarter (and to code!!) after these wildfires. Suspending wildfire building codes only kicks the can down the road and invites another disaster. Hardened homes and defensible space for the win. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Appreciate @marketplace.org having me on to talk about how we can live with wildfires. www.marketplace.org/shows/make-m...

People die in car crashes. A lot of people. In 2022 in the US, about 46,000. But if we had not made the safety improvements in cars that we have over the past half century - and had the same death rate as a result, 153,000 people would have died.

For the thousands of people asking "How do we fix this #wildfire problem?", @michaelwara.bsky.social wrote an excellent white paper 3 years ago that neatly lays out the basics of the multipronged approach. It still holds. @stanfordwoods.bsky.social hosted a discussion panel as well.

Globally, we published a summary paper in 2022 that looks at fire and climate change globally, led by Matt Jones at UEA. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

After a wildfire is contained, smoke can linger in homes for months. Learn ways you can protect yourself after wildfires — from @cugeography.bsky.social's Colleen Reid ⬇️

Many questions about whether people can/should live in Malibu. For answers, look at Pepperdine Univ. They safely sheltered-in-place just last month (Franklin Fire) and in 2018 (Woolsey Fire) thanks to excellent planning and fuel management. A model for getting it right. la.curbed.com/2018/11/20/1...

I often use Watch Duty as an example of truly needed tech solutions for wildfire. Drones and AI are never going to prevent wildfires or put them out. But communications before, during, and after fire is a massive gap that tech can absolutely help solve.

Cannot stop thinking about how Octavia Butler wrote a book in 1993 about climate change. It opens with deadly fires in LA in 2025. In the story, a fascist President has just won office with the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." She was a modern day Nostradamus. If only we'd listened.

Did a little story about the wildfires. gift link (I'm off today but it published today)

Here's the reality about the #LAFires this week: this isn't the first time ANY of these places have burned. Not even close. In 2018, we mapped CA fire history to look at fire frequency across SoCal. Santa Monica Mtns area burns more than anywhere else -- up to once per decade in a given spot. 🧵

SoCal friends, I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. A few things I wish I’d known as we evacuated ahead of a wildfire (that took our home in 2021) 🧵

It's so hard to know where to start when you've lost your home in a wildfire. If I had to pick the #1 thing I would advise you go secure a rental unit right this very moment. Get online and get applications submitted to property managers tonight. The housing shortage will be madness. #CAfire

More advice from those who have survived recent CA wildfires and what they learned. Please share with those who need it. #LAFires

We've been studying wildfire recovery for the last 4 years. It's a horrible mess. Many survivors think the worst is over when the fire ends, but then comes paperwork, weird federal rules, scams, etc. Some never rebuild or lose everything. Follow guidance from those who have been there, done that.

I've seen a few posts asking what those who have lost everything in #LAFires can do now. Strongly recommend looking at resources from @afterthefireusa.bsky.social on their website. Started by Tubbs Fire survivors. They've been through it, follow their advice. afterthefireusa.org

Just a reminder that I put together a wildfire expert starter pack (with heavy California representation). Happy to also connect journalists and others with folks specializing in specific topics.

THIS!! Over 70% of civilian wildfire fatalities are 65+ or disabled and they can't evacuate on their own.