For most of the 20th century, the insurance industry considered wildfires to be little more than a benign nuisance. They occurred frequently but rarely resulted in more than a handful of claims, and underwriters priced for them in the same way as other attritional sources of loss like theft, breakage and sewer back-up.

Then in 1991, everything changed.

(TNS) — Smoke quickly fills a room the size of a shipping container while two bodies lie on the floor. Within seconds, they completely disappear from view — though not for personnel with the Glendale Fire Department.

The smoke actually came from a fog machine and the bodies were firefighters who volunteered to act as stand-ins as the agency demonstrated its new thermal-imaging cameras on Wednesday. Although the firefighters could no longer be seen with the naked eye, their thermal signatures could be seen as clear as day through the cameras.

(TNS) - State lawmakers across the country are calling for huge investments to mitigate the effects of wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, droughts and other natural disasters made more devastating and frequent by climate change.

Following the hottest decade on record, which saw record-breaking wildfires in the West, extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy, a years-long drought in California, and severe flooding in the Midwest, legislators in many states say it's long past time to treat such events as the new normal — and invest accordingly.

(TNS) - For 911 dispatcher Lynette Starnes, the most chilling calls are the ones that come in from locations she can’t track.

“A stabbing, a homicide, a medical aid, we’re trained to get through that stuff,” she said. “But if I don’t know where you’re at, we can’t help you, and that is my personal biggest stress.”

Starnes has learned to weather the pressures of the job after more than three decades as a dispatcher for the San Rafael Police Department. But sometimes, she said, it’s tough to shake the anxiety.

Bankrupt California power producer PG&E Corp. did not properly inspect and replace transmission lines before a faulty wire sparked a wildfire that killed more than 80 people in 2018, a probe by a state regulator has concluded.

The Caribou-Palermo transmission line was identified as the cause of the Camp Fire last year, which virtually incinerated the Northern California town of Paradise and stands as the state’s most lethal blaze.

(TNS) - Margaret Mangan didn’t sleep well in the weeks following the Ridgecrest, Calif., earthquakes. The July shaking triggered a swarm of smaller tremors in the nearby Coso Volcanic Field, a cluster of lava domes and cinder cones at the northern end of the Mojave Desert. And it was Mangan’s job to watch for a possible eruption.

“We were pretty much on 24-7 vigilance,” said Mangan, the longtime scientist-in-charge of the U.S. Geological Survey’s California Volcano Observatory.

(TNS) — California utilities are experimenting with a new technology that proponents say could help prevent both electricity shutoffs and equipment failure-related wildfires.

The technology comes as the Pacific Gas & Electric faces intense criticism over its Public Safety Power Shutoff program, which has led to hundreds of thousands of Californians being left without power, often for days at a time, in an effort to prevent failing equipment from starting wildfires.

The diving boat that caught fire on Labor Day off Southern California, killing 34 people, was among hundreds of small vessels exempted by the U.S. Coast Guard from stricter safety rules designed to make it easier for passengers to escape, according to a newspaper report Monday.

The Conception was one of 325 boats built before 1996 and given exemptions from standards imposed on new vessels, according to records cited by the Los Angeles Times. The newer rules required escape hatches at least 32 inches wide and illuminated exit signs.

(TNS) — Around this time of year, wildfires are often influenced by two forces: wind and rain.

Santa Barbara on Monday night got heavy winds, fueling the dangerous Cave fire that threatened numerous homes north of the city.

But nature might also offer firefighters some relief, in the form of a storm moving in Tuesday night.