More Than Almonds
Pancaked almond trees are the latest symptom of the drought. Reservoirs have dipped to precarious lows. Snowpack is nonexistent. Wildfires have already ignited up and spread in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara months ahead of the peak of fire season. (Another fire from last year overwintered in a sequoia, underscoring just how low snowpack was.)
Now, a new heat wave is baking the Golden State red. Excessive heat warnings have run from Redding to Modesto as triple-digit temperatures bake the region. All this can take a toll on ecosystems and the state’s 39 million human residents. Heat is especially hard on the state’s poorest residents, and research has shown that historically redlined neighborhoods are the hottest locations in cities not just in California, but across the U.S. When fires ignite, the state’s incarcertate firefighter program lurches into gear, putting incarcerated people in harm’s way of increasingly dangerous fires.
