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Western Wildfires Threaten Water Supplies, Spur Utilities to Action

Steve Baragona

   As wildfires in the Western United States continue to worsen under the
   influence of climate change, one project offers hope on how to begin to
   confront a problem of enormous proportions.

   More than [1]1.5 million hectares have burned in California alone this
   year, shattering the state's previous record. Across the West, the
   [2]number of large fires per year has tripled, and the acreage burned
   has grown six-fold since the 1970s. The trends are expected to continue
   with climate change.

   The worst of these fires are preventable. The solutions are known. But
   the area involved is far too vast for the agencies in charge of
   managing it.

   In California's Placer County, an unusual partnership between a county
   water utility, the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists is taking
   on the work to prevent catastrophic fires on more than 11,000 hectares
   in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains.

References

   1. https://www.fire.ca.gov/stats-events/
   2. http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/westernwildfires2016vfinal.pdf

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