Wildfires

Powerful winds spark new blazes in California's year-round fire 'season'

Warm winter weather and strong gusts have led to an early start for 2021’s fires, following a record-breaking year of blazes in 2020

Julia Carrie Wong

19, Jan, 2021 @9:46 PM

Wildfires having devastating effect on air quality in western US, study finds

Blazes, intensified by the climate crisis, are reversing decades of gains in cutting air pollution, scientists report

Erin McCormick in Berkeley

19, Jan, 2021 @3:05 PM

New Year's Eve bushfire survivors look back on a year of loss and recovery

After ‘apocalyptic’ blazes ravaged communities, residents fought back. Here are their stories

Kieran Pender

30, Dec, 2020 @4:30 PM

California's wildfire hell: how 2020 became the state's worst ever fire season

Impossibly fast and ferocious blazes burned a staggering 4.1m acres, making for an ‘astonishing and horrifying’ year

30, Dec, 2020 @9:00 AM

Floods, storms and searing heat: 2020 in extreme weather

While Covid has dominated the news, the world has also felt the effects of human-driven global heating

Jonathan Watts

30, Dec, 2020 @7:00 AM

Seabird patrols to self-healing buildings: the 15 conservation stories to watch in 2021

In their latest scan of emerging global biological conservation issues, experts assess the 15 most urgent risks society needs to address

Mary Hoff for Ensia

28, Dec, 2020 @7:00 AM

Oregon wildfires are adding more fuel to young activists' legal climate battle

Plaintiffs in Juliana v United States are suing the government for violating their constitutional rights and asking for a recovery plan

Lee van der Voo in Portland, Oregon

23, Dec, 2020 @11:00 AM

Heat, wind and a cruel twist of nature: inside Oregon's nightmarish wildfire season

The state’s fire year made history, testing resources to unprecedented extremes as nine people died and 1m acres burned

Lee van der Voo in Portland, Oregon

22, Dec, 2020 @11:00 AM

'Devastating': more than 61,000 koalas among 3 billion animals affected by bushfire crisis

A new report says 143 million mammals were affected in the 2019-20 blazes, one of the ‘worst wildlife disasters in modern history’

Graham Readfearn

06, Dec, 2020 @4:30 PM

California: powerful winds ease but extreme fire danger remains due to dry conditions

Firefighters still battling a number of blazes and forecasters warn low humidity and tinder-dry brush mean red-flag warnings remain

Guardian staff and agency

04, Dec, 2020 @4:05 PM

Humanity is waging war on nature, says UN secretary general

António Guterres lists human-inflicted wounds on natural world in stark message

Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent

02, Dec, 2020 @2:24 PM

'Catastrophic' bushfire burns half of Queensland's Fraser Island and threatens ecological disaster

The fire on the world’s largest sand island, also known as K’gari, has been burning for six weeks and is encroaching on areas with 1,000-year-old trees