A firefighter conducts a prescribed burn near Monterey in 2017. Photo by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
On this show:
0:08 – For Mondays with Mitch, Brian Edwards-Tiekert talks to Mitch Jeserich, host of Letters & Politics weekdays at 10, about last week’s Democratic National Convention and the upcoming Republic National Convention, which is set to start today.
0:34 – What does wildfire smoke mean for the spread of COVID-19? And what does a new Hong Kong study indicate about reinfection? John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, joins us for COVID-19 updates to answer these questions and more.
1:08 – David King, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, discusses potential wildfire risks from a new storm coming onshore in the Bay Area. “One lightening strike can start a new wildfire,” he says — but adds that the Bay Area has largely avoided lightening from this storm, unlike last week when lightening strikes ignited devastated fires.
1:15 – Lenya Quinn-Davidson (@lenyaqd), the area fire advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension and director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, joins us to analyze the wildfires through the lens of forest ecology and explain how prescribed fires work. “We need to take action to create the conditions that would make us more resilient to fire, and make our forests and landscapes more in the state that they could accept fire and not have such catastrophic results,” Lenya says. Otherwise, she says, major wildfires will become the new normal.
1:34 – The CZU Lightening Complex fires in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties have forced thousands to evacuate. KPFA’s Ariel Boone (@arielboone) and Lucy Kang (@ThisIsLucyKang) spoke to some of the evacuees — many of them from rural communities — at the Half Moon Bay High School evacuation center.
1:42 – We take calls from listeners impacted by the wildfires, and ask for input on the issues we should cover.