2025 Media Watch Archives
Tiny burning embers flew miles, causing L.A. fire destruction on historic scale
Los Angeles Times -
Tirtha Banerjee, [is] an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine. … Banerjee’s research has found that those strong wind gusts help loft and transport embers, which is “what’s responsible for most of the building damage,” he said. “It’s not necessarily always this big wall of flame but rather embers transporting long distances and landing on some kind of fuel nearby or directly landing on a building.” Homes that are set ablaze by embers can also then contribute to even more ember generation, Banerjee said. Read More
The LA wildfires are ripping through the celebrity-packed Pacific Palisades. Here's which stars have lost homes in the blaze.
Business Insider -
Wildfires in the western US have been steadily growing bigger and more severe for decades, while the time of heightened risk known as "fire season" has been getting longer each year. A paper published in 2023 by researchers from the University of California, Irvine, found the human-caused climate crisis is the "major driver" for the state's increase in wildfires over the last quarter century. Read More
Time is Now to Abandon ‘Bathtub Modeling,’ Researchers Argue
Stormwater Report -
“Projections of flooding need to make sense to people, not only for building understanding of what’s at risk but also for deciding upon the investments and policies that will be made to manage it,” said Brett Sanders, UC Irvine Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and letter co-author. “Research studies that oversimplify flooding and don’t represent real-world data pose a threat to transformative action.” Read More