#Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

[wachinyeya]

Legislation passed last year allows federally recognized tribes to practice cultural burning freely once they reach an agreement with the California Natural Resources Agency and local air quality officials.

Northern California’s Karuk Tribe, the second largest in California, becomes the first tribe to reach such an agreement.

(Feb. 27, 2025, Noah Haggerty)

Northern California’s Karuk Tribe has for more than a century faced significant restrictions on cultural burning — the setting of intentional fires for both ceremonial and practical purposes, such as reducing brush to limit the risk of wildfires.

That changed this week, thanks to legislation championed by the tribe and passed by the state last year that allows federally recognized tribes in California to burn freely once they reach agreements with the California Natural Resources Agency and local air quality officials.

The tribe announced Thursday that it was the first to reach such an agreement with the agency.

“Karuk has been a national thought leader on cultural fire,” said Geneva E.B. Thompson, Natural Resources’ deputy secretary for tribal affairs. “So, it makes sense that they would be a natural first partner in this space because they have a really clear mission and core commitment to get this work done.”

In the past, cultural burn practitioners first needed to get a burn permit from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, a department within the Natural Resources Agency, and a smoke permit from the local air district.

The law passed in September 2024, SB 310, allows the state government to, respectfully, “get out of the way�� of tribes practicing cultural burns, said Thompson.

For the Karuk Tribe, Cal Fire will no longer hold regulatory or oversight authority over the burns and will instead act as a partner and consultant. The previous arrangement, tribal leaders say, essentially amounted to one nation telling another nation what to do on its land — a violation of sovereignty. Now, collaboration can happen through a proper government-to-government relationship.

The Karuk Tribe estimates that, conservatively, its more than 120 villages would complete at least 7,000 burns each year before contact with European settlers. Some may have been as small as an individual pine tree or patch of tanoak trees. Other burns may have spanned dozens of acres.

“When it comes to that ability to get out there and do frequent burning to basically survive as an indigenous community,” said Bill Tripp, director for the Karuk Tribe Natural Resource Department, “one: you don’t have major wildfire threats because everything around you is burned regularly. Two: Most of the plants and animals that we depend on in the ecosystem are actually fire-dependent species.”

The Karuk Tribe’s ancestral territory extends along much of the Klamath River in what is now the Klamath National Forest, where its members have fished for salmon, hunted for deer and collected tanoak acorns for food for thousands of years. The tribe, whose language is distinct from that of all other California tribes, is currently the second largest in the state, having more than 3,600 members.

Trees of life

Early European explorers of California consistently described open, park-like woods dominated by oaks in areas where the forest transitions to a zone mainly of conifers such as pines, fir and cedar.

The park-like woodlands were no accident. For thousands of years, Indigenous people have tended these woods. Oaks are regarded as a “tree of life” because of their many uses. Their acorns provide a nutritious food for people and animals.

Indigenous people have used low-intensity fires to clear litter and underbrush and to nurture the oaks as productive orchards. Burning controls insects and promotes growth of culturally important plants and fungi among the oaks.

Debris, brush and small trees consumed by low-intensity fire.

The history of the government’s suppression of cultural burning is long and violent. In 1850, California passed a law that inflicted any fines or punishments a court found “proper” on cultural burn practitioners.

In a 1918 letter to a forest supervisor, a district ranger in the Klamath National Forest — in the Karuk Tribe’s homeland — suggested that to stifle cultural burns, “the only sure way is to kill them off, every time you catch one sneaking around in the brush like a coyote, take a shot at him.”

For Thompson, the new law is a step toward righting those wrongs.

“I think SB 310 is part of that broader effort to correct those older laws that have caused harm, and really think through: How do we respect and support tribal sovereignty, respect and support traditional ecological knowledge, but also meet the climate and wildfire resiliency goals that we have as a state?” she said.

The devastating 2020 fire year triggered a flurry of fire-related laws that aimed to increase the use of intentional fire on the landscape, including — for the first time — cultural burns.

The laws granted cultural burns exemptions from the state’s environmental impact review process and created liability protections and funds for use in the rare event that an intentional burn grows out of control.

“The generous interpretation of it is recognizing cultural burn practitioner knowledge,” said Becca Lucas Thomas, an ethnic studies lecturer at Cal Poly and cultural burn practitioner with the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe of San Luis Obispo County and Region. “In trying to get more fire on the ground for wildfire prevention, it’s important that we make sure that we have practitioners who are actually able to practice.”

The new law, aimed at forming government-to-government relationships with Native tribes, can only allow federally recognized tribes to enter these new agreements. However, Thompson said it will not stop the agency from forming strong relationships with unrecognized tribes and respecting their sovereignty.

“Cal Fire has provided a lot of technical assistance and resources and support for those non-federally recognized tribes to implement these burns,” said Thompson, “and we are all in and fully committed to continuing that work in partnership with the non-federally-recognized tribes.”

Cal Fire has helped Lucas Thomas navigate the state’s imposed burn permit process to the point that she can now comfortably navigate the system on her own, and she said Cal Fire handles the tribe’s smoke permits. Last year, the tribe completed its first four cultural burns in over 150 years.

“Cal Fire, their unit here, has been truly invested in the relationship and has really dedicated their resources to supporting us,” said Lucas Thomas, ”with their stated intention of, ‘we want you guys to be able to burn whenever you want, and you just give us a call and let us know what’s going on.’”

[karadin]

While you were sleeping ...

Federal judge puts back funding to USAID

Federal judge demands US put back health related federal websites

Judge Tanya Chutkan investigating Elon Musk's ability to run DOGE

The Department of Energy blocks firings of hundreds of employees who work for a key agency maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile

Federal judge stops Trump from sending detainees to Cuba

Federal judge stops Trump from shutting down Consumer Protection Agency

DOGE now at CMS which covers Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace and are allied with Rachel Riley who worked at privatizing healthcare under Trump's first term.

Trump seeks to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and privatize the nation's weather reports and news

Judge blocks DOGE from sensitive Treasury Dept payment system, system being studied and re-programmed after DOGE invasion. expected to finish in August 25.

DOGE database on DOGE site found compromised, anyone can open and edit

Hundreds of federal workers illegally 'fired' from FEMA, DHS, CIS, CPA, the Coast Guard, USCIS, DHS' Science and Technology Directorate, the VA, Education and the US Forestry Service as well as half of the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service, The Indian (Native American) Health Service. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Institutes for Health, HUD and NOAA.

There have been illegal mass firings of 'probationary' federal employees, those who have just taken on jobs up to those who have were hired 2 years ago.

After seven prosecutors quit refusing to give a Trump deal to NYC mayor, prosecutors put into room and all told they would be fired unless a prosecutor signed off on the deal - Eric Adams case has been dropped and as a result, Adams is allowing Trump immigration to invade NYC.

Trump signs order to block funding for schools that mandate Covid vaccines

Trump has already captured funds to house the homeless in NYC that were disbursed by FEMA

Elon Musk has charged the US gov 16 million to hack at government departments so far.

Elon Musk was granted a 400million deal to sell the US gov cybertrucks

Elon Musk is now going after NASA, despite being a contractor for NASA, Trump says Musk will 'police' his own conflicts of interest.

Trump inserts himself into 'negotiations' between Russia and Ukraine, siding with Russia and not guaranteeing that Ukraine will return to pre-war borders.

Apparently at negotiations, US handed President Zelenskyy a note (mafia style) seeking half of Ukraine's mineral rights, which Zelenskyy refused to acknowlege.

at Munich Security Conference VP Vance pushes the right-wing in Europe, shocking and angering NATO allies, changing US policy towards Putin and China. Trump now says there is no US intent to 'beat China'.

FAKE DOGE 'employees' appear in San Francisco city hall demanding access to state systems and data, leaving when confronted.

Trump makes himself head of the Kennedy Center for the Arts many staff resign and many artist pull out of sold-out shows.

[mariacallous]

The giant fires that are scouring Los Angeles have officially become the most destructive in the city’s history, killing at least six people and destroying at least 5,000 buildings. But as the winds driving the inferno have slackened, experts are cautiously optimistic that the blazes can soon be beaten back.

With reinforcements from other states, California firefighters have shifted from defense to offense. Rather than just saving individual buildings, they are now trying to stop the overall advance of the flames.

“Tuesday and Wednesday our priority was saving lives and protecting as much property as possible,” says LA Fire Department spokesperson Margaret Stewart. “Now that we’re able to operate at our full capacity, we’re able to have a more powerful assault.”

In a two-pronged attack, aircraft have ramped up dousing the fires from the air while firefighters and bulldozers starve them of fuel on the ground. At times earlier in the week, planes had to be grounded because of the severity of the wind.

“I would say [the tide] is turning,” says Ken Pimlott, former director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “Today and tomorrow are really the key windows to get through, the red flag fire weather conditions. Then I think we’ll start to see much more progress.”

Massive fires began clawing through the Los Angeles metropolitan area on Tuesday thanks to a combination of long-standing drought and a bout of strong Santa Ana winds, seasonal air that blows from the high desert of Nevada and Utah into Southern California.

The Palisades Fire east of Malibu, which has burned almost 20,000 acres, was 0 percent contained on Thursday. Celebrities like Billy Crystal and Paris Hilton were among the many people who had lost their homes. The Eaton Fire in Pasadena, roughly 25 miles to the east, was also uncontained, but the fire department has been able to slow its growth. The Sunset Fire that started in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday was quickly hemmed in, and two others are partially contained.

“The only fire that has that potential [to grow] is Palisades, and we have 1,100 people on that,” Stewart says.

The key factor has been the winds of up to 99 miles per hour. They’ve been raking down from the northeast to the southwest, fanning the flames and throwing burning embers half a mile in front of the main fire. Canyons running largely the same direction have funneled and intensified that movement of air, creating what Pimlott called a “blowtorch” that spread the Palisades Fire. The flames have been essentially unstoppable.

“These pressurized winds literally explode out of these canyons,” says Janet Upton, former deputy director of Cal Fire. “All you can do is work to get anything with a heartbeat out of the way.”

But the winds began easing up on Wednesday and Thursday. They were anticipated to reach 15 to 20 miles per hour Thursday afternoon, before ticking up to 30 to 40 miles per hour on Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Firefighters that were helpless against virtually unstoppable wind-driven blazes have been able to return to their normal tactics.

“With those winds being very calm this morning, I believe we can actually make some progress, turn a corner, and start to build some containment on these fires,” Brent Pascua, a Cal Fire battalion chief, told The Today Show on Thursday.

So far the disaster response has been marred by disinformation and controversy. After some fire hydrants ran dry, president-elect Donald Trump baselessly accused California governor Gavin Newsom of mismanaging the state’s water supplies to save an endangered fish.

City employees have now been able to reach three water tanks on hills near the Palisades Fire to turn up the pressure. That allows the tanks to be refilled more quickly so they can keep supplying the hydrants, Stewart says. Each tank can hold 1 million gallons. “We have full flowing hydrants,” she says.

More firefighters have begun to arrive from Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and New Mexico. Several dozen task forces are on their way, according to Stewart, each with five fire engines plus a command vehicle.

Aircraft began flying again on Wednesday. Twelve helicopters are filling humongous water buckets hanging from cables and sucking seawater up through snorkels. Six planes are also working the fires, including a pair of “super scoop” aircraft that have been skimming across the surface of the Pacific to pick up water. The helicopters and scoop planes dump water on spot fires, letting firefighters close in and extinguish them.

Meanwhile, other airplanes are dropping fire retardant out ahead of the inferno, coating potential fuel with a layer of nonflammable chemicals and slowing its advance. A C-130 cargo plane that Cal Fire acquired from the Coast Guard and retrofitted this summer can dump 4,000 gallons of retardant. That buys time for firefighters to dig and bulldoze firebreaks of bare soil.

With the ocean constraining the Palisades Fire to the south, responders will try to prevent it from breaking out to the east or west. “The real spread is going to be on the flank,” Pimlott says.

A red flag warning for increased fire risk will remain through Friday, with humidity at only 8–12 percent. California has been suffering an abnormally dry winter, with 40 percent of the state under drought conditions.

“Fuels remain critically dry,” James Magana of Cal Fire said at a Thursday morning briefing. “You can expect to see critical rates of spread, especially on those ridgetops or those drainages that are in alignment with the wind.”

On Saturday, the winds are expected to reverse direction. If firefighters aren’t ready, the heel of the fire could become the front and run off to the north.

Even once they’re able to contain the conflagration within a circle of firebreaks and natural barriers, that won’t be the end of the task. Firefighters will have to stamp out smaller fires within that footprint.

“That’s a critical stage, to mop up these hot spots or anything that could rekindle if the winds were to increase again,” Upton says.

Moving forward, the city will need to clean up debris, restore utilities, and analyze damage to the environment before allowing people to move back. With canyons depleted of the trees and vegetation that hold the soil, mudslides could become a threat once the rains return.

Los Angeles will face the prospect of rebuilding destroyed communities. That’s an opportunity to make them less vulnerable to the next fire, says Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Although houses are in many cases required to be built with fire-resistant materials, California law doesn’t say anything about how they should be laid out. Techniques like clustering homes rather than spreading them out among the trees can make them easier to defend from fire, and easier to evacuate, he says.

“That is part of the hope here, that we can do some of this better, smarter, and safer,” Moritz says.

[vintagecamping]

Yours In Trust, We Must Protect It From Fire

Fire prevention poster, Maryland State Department of Forestry

1939

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

Extirpated from the United States a century ago and almost unknown until the mid-1990s, this endangered species can make a comeback if we give it a small boost. New technology for tracking has allowed an assessment and intervention that may help these birds hold on in several critical areas.

Species name:

Thick-billed parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha)

Description:

A typical parrot-green, mid-sized bird weighing 14-17 ounces (400-500 grams) with a distinctive wine-red mask. In flight, a distinctive yellow band is visible under the wings. Their raucous calls sound like laughter in the middle of the forest.

Where They’re Found:

Thick-billed parrots live mostly in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range. They were presumably once abundant representatives of high-altitude pine forests, where they persist to this day in much smaller numbers due to the destruction of most old-growth forests and the reduction of mature forests. The species is only present in a small number of zones with adequate conditions for nesting, where they’re mostly under protection or good forest management.

IUCN Red List status:

Considered “endangered” in the most recent 2020 assessment, mainly due to habitat loss and an apparent constant decline. The first comprehensive population estimate will be conducted this fall. The parrot will be one of the first bird species to undergo the IUCN’s new Green Status Assessment, which measures the recovery of species populations and their conservation success.

Major Threats:

The extirpation of thick-billed parrots in the northern part of their range is believed to have been caused by hunting or shooting the parrots for “sport” or food. In the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico, where the core populations and range have been holding on, massive land-use change — particularly forestry practices to harvest all old-growth and large trees and remove snags that serve as nesting trees — resulted in precipitous decline over the past century, up until very recently. 

From the 1970s to the 1990s, demand by collectors and the pet trade became an additional threat that has since largely disappeared or represents minimal pressure on the species.

Notable Conservation Programs or Legal Protections:

For 30 years a small group of individuals and institutions have been doing research and developing a suite of techniques for thick-billed parrots, not only for research but also to enhance population growth by mitigating or eliminating factors that increase mortality and reduce productivity.

Most of the work during this time, which provided valuable information and insights, was done at a “pilot scale” and with meager resources. As a result we were basically frustrated witnesses to a species’ decline and potential demise.

Fortunately the species is currently the focus of a comprehensive binational effort of community-based conservation to change the trajectory of decline. The field team is led by Organización Vida Silvestre (OVIS) and supported notably by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, World Parrot Trust, and additional supporters and donors.

Over the next five years (2024-2028) we will implement the full suite of actions, including intensive nest monitoring and management, parasite control on an ad-hoc basis, food supplementation to chicks in select clutches to prevent emaciation, an enhanced nesting box program, fire pre-suppression activities, incentives to local communities, community-based monitoring and nest protection, greater understanding of landscape level need of the thick-billed parrot, and amplifying the telemetry information to include not only long distance movements but also daily activities to food, water and clay licks.

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

"from 2021: inside California's Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp, the last “fire camp” where incarcerated teenagers and young men — 95% of whom are Black, Latinx, or Filipino — earn between $2.20 and $4 per hr (and an additional $1/hr when they’re actively fighting fires) by teenvogue"

hey thanks for the rec!!! https://www.teenvogue.com/story/wildfire-camp-incarcerated-teens

" Chuy Hernandez turned 18 when he was at Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp (PGYCC), the only remaining “fire camp” for incarcerated youth in California. He’d spent the previous six months working with the kitchen crew, until he was legally old enough to work as a wildland firefighter.  In the weeks leading up to his 18th birthday, Hernandez began the rigorous training process required to make it on a fire hand crew. There were hours of hiking and fitness conditioning, classroom lessons taught by a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) captain, and a series of tests on various firefighting skills. By the time Hernandez was of legal age, he had undergone the same kind of training as a seasonal, entry-level California firefighter at a firefighting academy. When Hernandez was released three years later, he had become first man on his hand crew and racked up significant on-the-job experience. But Hernandez struggled to find a full-time job as a firefighter, despite California’s serious shortage of firefighters in recent years. The closest he’s gotten to professional fire work since leaving Pine Grove five years ago is on a hand crew with the California Conservation Corps, an organization that hires young people, including previously incarcerated firefighters, for a year to “work on environmental projects and respond to natural and manmade disasters.” Their motto: “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!” 

"

mod ali

[darkmaga-returns]

1. Update on the currently active fires, as of early Wednesday evening, from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection:

Palisades Fire - 0% contained Eaton Fire - 0% contained Hurst Fire - 0% contained Lidia Fire - 0% contained Woodley Fire - 0% contained Olivas Fire - 0 % contained (Sources: weather.com, fire.ca.gov)

2. The New York Times:

A new wildfire broke out on Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, an area of central Los Angeles indelibly associated with the American film industry, as emergency crews struggled against several other devastating blazes that were raging out of control and forcing desperate evacuations. Even though wildfires are a fact of life in the hills of Southern California, the experience of watching one encroach upon a metropolitan area left residents deeply unsettled and afraid. The 60-acre Sunset fire, burning among the hiking trails and secluded mansions of the Hollywood Hills, was zero percent contained as of 9 p.m. local time. (Source: nytimes.com)

3. Before it’s uninhabitable, it’s uninsurable. Wednesday’s firestorm in a wealthy area of Los Angeles could be the final straw that breaks California’s insurance market. The state’s insurance market has been teetering on the edge of insolvency for years thanks to catastrophic wildfires that have driven many insurers to stop writing new policies and drop existing ones. Wednesday’s wind-driven wildfires in a part of Los Angeles packed with multimillion-dollar homes could accelerate its collapse. (Source: politico.com)

[bekolxeram]

I hate to break it to you, but the pilot in 2x14 is NOT Tommy.

The good old timeline problem

Plenty of pilots hold both licenses for helicopters AND airplanes, it's not impossible to fly both categories of aircraft on a job either. The thing is, helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes generate lift differently, so naturally logged flight hours on one category is not transferable to the other, you have to accumulate them separately. For Tommy to serve in the army, work as an active firefighter since 2005, and build up enough flight hours on both helicopters and multi-engine fixed-wing aircrafts, he would have to live in the sky.

2. LAFD does not own any fixed-wing aircraft, nor does it make sense to have one

The LAFD serves the city of Los Angeles, which is mostly urban, for the more suburban or rural area around LA you have the LA County Fire Department. Green areas within the city of LA are not big enough to warrant a whole air tanker, a fleet of 7 helicopters would suffice. LA has plenty of water source nearby, even if a catastrophic wildfire happens within its city limit, the choppers can simply go back and forth scooping up water and dropping it.

Helicopters are definitely better suited for urban areas, because they can fly straight up and down, they can hover and they only require a space big enough for the aircraft itself to take off/land, while a fixed-wing aircraft needs a whole runway.

Waterbombing in an urban area is also dangerous. The water or fire retardant dropped from an aerial firefighting aircraft is actually quite heavy, and it can cause damage to ground properties, let alone serious injuries or even death to ground personnel.

Fixed-wing aircrafts create lift by flying forward through the air, so precision is not of the essence. Helicopters on the other hand, create lift by the motion of the blades, so they can move in any direction until they get an exact aim at their target.

3. The plane is canonically not from the LAFD

Neither the LAFD nor the LACoFD own any fixed-wing aircraft, the closest department to operate such aircraft is the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, aka CAL FIRE. If you go back to the episode, you can hear the news reporter saying the C-130 is with CAL FIRE just before Chimney turns off the TV.

The LAFD and LACoFD do work with CAL FIRE when there's a major wildfire, so Tommy probably just asked his colleagues at the 217 or called up himself pilots at CAL FIRE to ask for a favor.

In that episode. Chimney asks specifically for the help of the 217 through Tommy, and Eddie receives radio communication just before the plane arrives that "217 is inbound", so it's safe to say the 217 IS where the LAFD AIr Operations are based at. Despite recent confusion on Tommy and Buck's career timeline (5 years vs 7 years), 217 IS harbor station, at least according to previous lore.

[metalgearemily]

As much as a hate liberal vote shaming I need people to stop pretending that things would still be as bad as they are right now if we didn’t have trump in office. I am a field biology student, I work and volunteer for wildlife bio/ecology/conservation positions, and with that I speak to a lot of state and federally employed scientists. I was working with some federal forestry people at a site I do research on and they were literally discussing what departments they think will be completely cut and I’d they’ll be fired or not. And every single forestry employee I was volunteering with has DECADES of experience, but their positions aren’t safe. My friends applying for grad schools had schools reject them not because they didn’t want them, but because their funding was ENTIRELY removed because of trumps legislations. Trump is pushing to remove grey wolves from the endangered species act, AGAIN. Which already happened in 2020, only for it to be reinstated in 2022 because thriving wolf populations we’re absolutely decimated. In 2021, Idaho killed around 90% of the wolf population leaving the population of 1,500 to 150. Wolves barely have time to recover from the last legislative removal and now trump is pushing to kill ‘em again! Awesome. In an already highly competitive field there are less and less positions and more and more environmental concerns. Pushes for removal of protections on land, destruction of national parks. Trying to remove the progress we’ve made in 150 years by targeting acts like the Mining Act of 1872, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982. This is like comical levels of evilness. This is not shit you can walk back on. The damage that will be done won’t be able to reversed in our lifetimes. And what the hell are we supposed to do, protest? I have, I have protested and what do I have to show for it. What do we have to show for it???? Americans have been cultivated in to a people of complacency. We have been pushed and pushed and pushed and sure nowww we’re protesting. What’s gonna change things, is if some one kills him. Legitimately.

[beardedmrbean]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California and Nevada voters will decide in November whether to ban forced prison labor by removing language from their state constitutions rooted in the legacy of chattel slavery.

The measures aim to protect incarcerated people from being forced to work under the threat of punishment in the states, where it is not uncommon for prisoners to be paid less than $1 an hour to fight fires, clean prison cells, make license plates or do yard work at cemeteries.

Nevada incarcerates about 10,000 people. All prisoners in the state are required to work or be in vocational training for 40 hours each week, unless they have a medical exemption. Some of them make as little as 35 cents hourly.

Voters will weigh the proposals during one of the most historic elections in modern history, said Jamilia Land, an advocate with the Abolish Slavery National Network who has spent years trying to get the California measure passed.

“California, as well as Nevada, has an opportunity to end legalized, constitutional slavery within our states, in its entirety, while at the same time we have the first Black woman running for president,” she said of Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic bid as the first Black and Asian American woman to earn a major party’s nomination for the nation’s highest office.

Several other states such as Colorado, Alabama and Tennessee have in recent years done away with exceptions for slavery and involuntary servitude, though the changes were not immediate. In Colorado — the first state to get rid of an exception for slavery from its constitution in 2018 — incarcerated people alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2022 against the corrections department that they had still been forced to work.

“What it did do — it created a constitutional right for a whole class of people that didn’t previously exist,” said Kamau Allen, a co-founder of the Abolish Slavery National Network who advocated for the Colorado measure.

Nevada's proposal aims to abolish from the constitution both slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. California’s constitution was changed in the 1970s to remove an exemption for slavery, but the involuntary servitude exception remains on the books.

Wildland firefighting is among the most sought-after prison work programs in Nevada. Those eligible for the program are paid around $24 per day.

“There are a lot of people who are incarcerated that want to do meaningful work. Now are they treated fairly? No,” said Chris Peterson, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which supports the measure. “They’re getting paid pennies on the hour, where other people get paid dollars, to do incredibly dangerous work.”

Peterson pointed to a state law that created a modified workers’ compensation program for incarcerated people who are injured on the job. Under that program, the amount awarded is based on the person’s average monthly wage when the injury occurred.

In 2016, Darrell White, an injured prison firefighter who filed a claim under the modified program, learned he would receive a monthly disability payment of “$22.30 for a daily rate of $0.50.” By then, White already had been freed from prison, but he was left unable to work for months while he recovered from surgery to repair his fractured finger, which required physical therapy.

White sued the state prison system and Division of Forestry, saying his disability payments should have been calculated based on the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 at the time. The case went all the way up to the Nevada Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal, saying it remained an “open question” whether Nevada prisoners were constitutionally entitled to minimum wage compensation.

“It should be obvious that it is patently unfair to pay Mr. White $0.50 per day,” his lawyer, Travis Barrick, wrote in the appeal, adding that White's needs while incarcerated were minimal compared to his needs after his release, including housing and utilities, food and transportation. “It is inconceivable that he could meet these needs on $0.50 per day.”

The California state Senate rejected a previous version of the proposal in 2022 after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration cited concerns about the cost if the state had to start paying all prisoners the minimum wage.

Newsom signed a law earlier this year that would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to create a voluntary work program. The agency would set wages for people incarcerated in state prisons under the law. But the law would only take effect if voters approve the forced labor ban.

The law and accompanying measure will give incarcerated people more of an opportunity for rehabilitation through therapy or education instead of being forced to work, said California Assemblymember Lori Wilson, a Democrat representing Solano County who authored this year's proposal.

Wilson suffered from trauma growing up in a household with dysfunction and abuse, she said. She was able to work through her trauma by going to therapy. But her brother, who did not get the same help, instead ended up in prison, she said.

“It's just a tale of two stories of what happens when someone who has been traumatized, has anger issues and gets the rehabilitative work that they need to — what they could do with their life,” Wilson said.

Yannick Ortega, a formerly incarcerated woman who now works at an addiction recovery center in Fresno, California, was forced to work various jobs during the first half of her time serving 20 years in prison for a murder conviction, she said.

“When you are sentenced to prison, that is the punishment,” said Ortega, who later became a certified paralegal and substance abuse counselor by pursuing her education while working in prison. “You’re away from having the freedom to do anything on your own accord.”

[follow-up-news]

So far in this year’s California’s wildfire season, about 20 times more acres of land have burned than around this time last year. Since the beginning of the year, there were more than 3,500 wildfires across the state through early July, causing about 207,000 acres of land to burn. Around this time last year, about 10,000 acres had burned. The five-year average of acres burned through mid-July is about 39,000, Cal Fire said last week. “We are not just in a fire season, but we are in a fire year,” Joe Tyler, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said at a news conferenceearlier in July.

[lightofraye]

California Wildfire Status

From article:

Nearly all of the active wildfires in California have been contained, according to the most recent update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

...

As of Friday morning, many of the fires have been fully contained and are no longer listed as active incidents on Cal Fire's website.

Firefighters continue to work on the Palisades and Eaton fires, the first blazes to ignite in Los Angeles County earlier this month, on January 7.

The Palisades fire exploded to more than 23,000 acres. It is now 98 percent contained. This blaze killed at least 12 people, both civilians and firefighters. More than 1,000 structures were damaged, and 6,837 structures were destroyed, including residential and commercial buildings. So far, there are four confirmed injuries.

The Eaton fire, which burned more than 14,000 acres, is 99 percent contained. This blaze killed at least 17 people, both citizens and fire personnel, Cal Fire said. There were nine confirmed injuries. More than 1,070 structures were damaged, and 9,418 structures were destroyed, including residential and commercial buildings.

The number of fatalities and damaged or destroyed structures may change, Cal Fire said.

Cal Fire has transitioned command of the Palisades Fire back to the Los Angeles Fire Department, and command of the Eaton fire has been transitioned to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The causes of both fires are still under investigation.

[mareastrorum]

In case any non-Californians are curious, native Californians have a wonderful, reliable resource about fires:

And if you need more detail than that, CalFIRE often has more details:

[nwalthall]

Half awake in our fake empire...

Copyright 2023 Ned walthall

Over the last five decades, the wildfire season in the western United States has already grown by two and a half months; of the ten years with the most wildfire activity on record, nine have occurred since 2000. Globally, since just 1979, the season has grown by nearly 20 percent, and American wildfires now burn twice as much land as they did as recently as 1970. By 2050, destruction from wildfires is expected to double again, and in some places in the United States the area burned could grow fivefold. For every additional degree of global warming, it could quadruple. What this means is that at three degrees of warming, our likely benchmark for the end of the century, the United States might be dealing with with sixteen times as much devastation from fire as we are today, when in a single year ten million acres were burned.

David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth

From CNN today:

Evacuations are underway across Hawaii’s Big Island and Maui as several different wildfires rage across the islands.

Strong winds are helping to fan the fires, affecting the speed and direction of the inferno.

If you find yourself caught in a wildfire, here are some things you can do to try to protect yourself, according to tips from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In your car:

Park your vehicle in an area clear of vegetation. Close all vehicle windows and vents. If you have a cotton or wool blanket or jacket, cover yourself with it to deflect radiant heat. Lie on the floor of your vehicle.

At home:

Fill sinks and tubs to stock up on water if the power goes out. Keep doors and windows closed but unlocked. Stay inside your house. Stay away from outside walls and windows.

Outside:

Try to find a place free from vegetation, such as a ditch or depression on level ground.

Lie face down and cover your body to minimize smoke inhalation.

--Holly Yan, CNN

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the LA Times:

A litter of Rottweiler puppies and their mother were saved from a fiery death in the Park fire thanks to a determined member of the Butte County Sheriff’s Office, officials said.

The rescue is one of the few silver linings to the Park fire in Northern California. The blaze had burned almost 390,000 acres as of Wednesday morning and was still only 18% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The dogs, two adult Rottweilers and their four puppies, were left in a truck that had broken down on the side of the road, left behind by residents who were evacuating the blaze near Campbellville in Butte County, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The truck’s owner was not able to take the dogs, but provided the location of the vehicle to the Sheriff’s Office. Because of the fire, rescuers could not immediately get to the dogs’ location.

On Saturday, days after the dogs were abandoned, Trevor Skaggs, a member of the sheriff’s search-and-rescue team, flew to the area in a helicopter to find the dogs.

After landing, Skaggs ran more than a mile to the location where the dogs were reported to be. Though the adult male Rottweiler had died, Skaggs found the mother and puppies still alive in the truck — “tired and very thirsty” — according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Skaggs’ wife, Christina, told the San Jose Mercury News that Skaggs is a vegan and ultra marathoner and that he ran from the helicopter to where the dogs were. Skaggs was familiar with Rottweilers because his first dog was a Rottweiler, she said.

Once he found the dogs, Skaggs sang to them and was able to persuade the mother, and then the puppies, to trust him, his wife said.

Skaggs gave the animals water and fed them a few bites of his granola bar and then got the animals to follow him back more than a mile to the helicopter.

Video provided by the Sheriff’s Office shows the puppies and the mother trailing behind Skaggs as he led them back to the helicopter.

[darkmaga-returns]

Why do so many people insist on living in the state of California?  Today, it has the highest population of any U.S. state by a very wide margin.  Approximately 39 million people live in California, and Texas is number two on the list with a population of about 30 million.  I just don’t get it.  Those that live in California have to deal with relentless crime, the worst traffic in the western world, a historic homelessness epidemic, hordes of drug addicts, endless earthquakes, giant landslides, and insane politicians that do some of the stupidest things imaginable.  On top of everything else, wildfires have been ripping across the state with alarming frequency, and now we are witnessing a “hurricane of fire” that is unlike anything we have seen before.  According to the latest update from Yahoo News, the Palisades Fire is now more than 15,000 acres in size…

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, there are four wildfires currently scorching Los Angeles County: the Palisades Fire, at more than 15,800 acres; the Eaton Fire, at 10,600 acres; the Hurst Fire, about 500 acres; and the Woodley Fire, at 30 acres. Officials said the Olivas Fire was burning in Ventura County. All of the fires were 0% contained.

The Palisades Fire is already being called “the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history”.  At this point, Accuweather is projecting that the total damage from this cluster of wildfires will exceed 50 billion dollars…

A preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from the cluster of wildfires ravaging Southern California, according to one report, has been put at $52 to $57 billion. The report was released by AccuWeather on Wednesday, Jan. 8, as the Eaton Fire, Palisades Fire and Woodley Fire continued to burn parts of Los Angeles County, spurring the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents and resulting in the deaths of two civilians.

In 2025, our first “billion dollar disaster” has come very early.