Burning hotter and faster

A collection of California wildfires – two of which are among the five largest in state history – has burned more than a million acres and forced 100,000 residents to evacuate their homes. The fires have also blanketed many parts of the state in choking smoke, degrading air quality to unhealthy levels.

In our years of reporting on wildfires like these, a few key themes have emerged:

Building in the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) can increase fire risk. In a 2016 investigation, we found that since 1990, 8.5 million more homes are in WUI areas. Why? New homes have been pushing out farther into the wilderness.

More than half the wildfires between 1992 and 2013 occurred in Southern states, including Texas, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Fires there typically are smaller, with an average size of 27.6 acres. Fires in Western states are roughly six times larger.

Communities have pushed into wildfire danger zones despite officials’ warnings. In fact, one Northern California community redeveloped land that was within the burn zone of a previous wildfire. Check out our graphic of the development.

Data suggests wildfire smoke can generate serious health consequences later on. We found that three to five months after the 37,000-acre Tubbs Fire in the Napa and Sonoma valleys in October 2017, the region’s emergency rooms treated about 20% more patients for respiratory and cardiac ailments compared with previous years.

Rather than improving wildfire conditions, rain can actually make things worse. Heavy rains can temporarily revitalize California’s landscape. But as we’ve reported, they don’t do enough to hydrate trees and shrubs, which eventually shrivel into ideal fuel for wildfires.

Lost in transplantation

The speed at which donated organs reach patients waiting for a transplant is a matter of life and death. Yet transportation errors are leading to delays in surgeries that put patients in danger and make some organs unusable. This week, we’re revisiting an episode looking at weaknesses in the nation’s system for transporting organs and ideas for making it work better.

Commercial flights carry more donated kidneys than any other organ to waiting patients. In collaboration with Kaiser Health News, we look at how a lack of tracking and accountability in transporting kidneys can result in these organs being waylaid or misplaced.

We then look at the broader issues affecting organ procurement in the U.S. with Jennifer Erickson, who worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under the Obama administration. She says one of the system’s weaknesses is that not enough organs are recovered from deceased people – not nearly as many as there could be.

We end with an audio postcard about honor walks, a new ritual that hospitals are adopting to commemorate the gift of life that dying people are giving to recipients of their organs. We follow the story of one young man who was killed in a car accident.

The founder of New Mexico’s new militia was a neo-Nazi skinhead

When Facebook announced its removal and restriction of “movements and organizations tied to violence” last week, groups tied to antifa and the conspiracy theory community QAnon grabbed many of the headlines.

But also among the groups was a right-wing militia that rapidly rose to prominence this summer: the New Mexico Civil Guard. It gained national attention in June, when a demonstration at a statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate in Albuquerque ended with the shooting of a protester.

As our own Stan Alcorn reports, the militia’s founder, Bryce Provance, spent most of his adult life as a violent and committed neo-Nazi skinhead, despite Provance’s attempts to downplay links to racism and violence.

This confrontation is just the latest in a long line of clashes and demonstrations related to the Oñate statue. For a full deep dive on the subject, check out Stan’s extended adaptation of his Reveal reporting on the podcast 99% Invisible.

In/Vulnerable

Sherry Jenks is a real estate broker in Bayport, New York. She owns investment properties in the Hamptons, an upscale beach enclave where many wealthy New Yorkers own second homes.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, she has noticed a boom in interest for short-term rentals. Pools, in particular, have been a big selling point.

“Because of the pandemic, you had many more New Yorkers looking for something nearby,” she said. “So those same people who may have in the past gone to Europe or traveled to other places or taken a cruise, and because they felt that those options were no longer viable, there was even more demand to stay local.”

This is the latest installment of In/Vulnerable, our ongoing comics series with The Nib investigating inequity during the pandemic. Read all of the installments here.

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