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Australia's Fires Through a Californian's Eyes.
Author: Jill Cowan and Thomas Fuller
Cowan, Jill, and Thomas Fuller. “Australia's Fires Through a Californian's Eyes.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/us/california-australia-wildfires.html.
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CALIFORNIA TODAY
Australia’s Fires Through a Californian’s Eyes
Thursday: The scale is different, but the parallels are undeniable. Also: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s big homelessness plan, and one of “52 Places.”
By Jill Cowan and
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Good morning.
(Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today delivered to your inbox.)
Today, we have a special dispatch from my colleague Thomas Fuller, who has covered deadly wildfires in California for years. Now, he’s in Australia, reporting on the devastating fires there:
Driving along the southeastern Australian coast, past homes razed by fire and beside blackened forests shrouded in a milky white haze, my thoughts often drift back to California.
As the San Francisco bureau chief, I’ve covered the Wine Country fires of 2017, the devastation of Paradise in 2018 and the Kincade fire a few months ago. Last week I flew from San Francisco to Sydney to help report on the fires that have burned more than 15 million acres in Australia — an area seven times larger than what burned in California in 2018, which was the most destructive year on record in the Golden State.
[Read more about Californians who have fled fire after fire.]
Yet despite the difference in scale I’ve seen countless parallels with California.
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There’s a shared feeling of helplessness, a destabilizing fear of not being able to control the vast hinterland. And a dazed recognition of the awesome power of wildfires. The aluminum wheels of cars melted into miniature rivers here, just as they have in California, a testament to the fires’ ferocious intensity.
In the small town of Mogo, Andrew Graham stood in his backyard inspecting the ruins of his home. It had been a sturdy cinder-block structure, but the fire was so fierce it shattered the walls as if it were a missile. The glass from Mr. Graham’s windows appeared to have vaporized, leaving only a few curved pieces that could have been mistaken for sea glass collected from the beach.
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[Read more about Mogo here.]
Mr. Graham and his wife had moved into their home on Christmas Eve. A week later, on New Year’s Eve, the firestorm came.
“I have two sets of clothes and that’s it,” he said. “I lost everything.”
Just as in California, many Australians have moved from cities into more affordable rural areas in recent years. Now Australia, like California, is counting the costs of communities pushing into the fire-prone wilderness.
Firefighters in Australia have similar observations about the infernos they are seeing. Fires are more intense than in the past; they move more quickly, even at night. And just as in the United States there are acrimonious debates between left and right over the role of climate change in creating these conditions.
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There seems to be a recognition on both sides of the Pacific that the fires are seminal events that will change the relationship between man and nature and will upend assumptions about the protections and conveniences of modern life.
[Here’s more about efforts to save Australia’s wildlife.]
The fires in Australia cut power to many areas, and the hardware shops that remained open sold out of generators. Some shops accepted only cash because their electronic payments system went off-line. And the authorities warned residents to boil tap water before drinking it. Just as in California, the fires seemed to be dragging a modern society backward.
Australians, like Americans, have a tradition of can-do optimism. It’s now being tested, but I’ve been impressed with the emotional resilience I’ve seen both in California and Australia.
In the seaside town of Canjola Park, three hours south of Sydney, I met Maree Fletcher scouring the wreckage of her home for anything she could salvage.
She, her son and her two dogs survived the New Year’s Eve firestorm by wading into the ocean.
Bulldozers would come soon to flatten the rubble of Ms. Fletcher’s home, and there was very little she could find to recover. Yet she was remarkably calm.
“As long as I’ve got my family everything else is irrelevant,” she said.
[Read more of Thomas’s work here.]
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Here’s what else we’re following
We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times coverage, but we also encourage you to support local news if you can.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would vote today to force President Trump to wind down military action against Iran unless he is given explicit permission by Congress. [The New York Times]
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to release a proposed budget that will feature major spending on homelessness initiatives, including an effort to help people into supportive housing and a push to house people in state-owned trailers. [Politico]
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Also, Mr. Newsom issued an executive order that will allow cities to open emergency shelters on vacant state land. [The Mercury News]
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And a new bill would allow low-income housing projects and shelters to bypass the California Environmental Quality Act. [The Los Angeles Times]
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Nawres Waleed Hamid, the contractor killed in a rocket attack in Iraq late last month whose death was the start of a chain of events that led to escalating tensions with Iran, lived in Sacramento. His wife said she’d stay there: “Now my focus is on my two children; they are my world.” [The Sacramento Bee]
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“I still haven’t found an example quite like what happened to my family, in Southern California.” A journalist wrote about the time, when she was a child, unidentified federal agents raided her home not long after her family had come from Iran. [NPR]
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A lawmaker from Fresno, State Senator Melissa Hurtado, named Sherry Yang as her chief of staff. Ms. Yang is the first Hmong to hold that title at the Capitol. [The Fresno Bee]
Also: Read more about the roots of Fresno’s Hmong community. [The New York Times]
Debatable
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Can San Francisco be “fixed”? Local writers (including some of my colleagues), policymakers, activists and even Mark Benioff weigh in. [Curbed San Francisco]
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A curious case of holes in the flags. Like, right in the center. (Officials don’t think it was weirdly specific vandalism, though.) [The Bakersfield Californian]
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If you describe Larry David — whose very L.A. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is set to come back for its 10th season — as neurotic, you are missing the point. He might actually be one of the most self-actualized people on the planet. [GQ]
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The Oscars will go hostless again. [The Associated Press]
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Déjà Vu, a chain of adult entertainment clubs, donated hundreds of tents to homeless people in San Diego in what executives said was a gesture of good will. Not everyone was pleased, though; the tents were emblazoned with the club’s logo. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]
And Finally …
A while ago, I made a reference in this newsletter to California’s wine region. A reader emailed to note that’s imprecise: The Golden State, in all its bounty, has more than one.
Today, The Times introduced the 2020 installation of our “52 Places” feature, and one of those wine regions — not Napa Valley — was the only California destination on this year’s list.
The Paso Robles area, the piece notes, has more than 300 wineries, a massive light art installation and new restaurants.
But Californians know — and as evidenced by the hourslong wait at every restaurant we tried in town before a concert at Vina Robles Amphitheatre last year — it’s hardly undiscovered territory.
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So here’s my additional, totally unsolicited Paso Robles travel tip: Make reservations.
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
Jill Cowan is the California Today correspondent, keeping tabs on the most important things happening in her home state every day. @jillcowan
Thomas Fuller is the San Francisco bureau chief. He has spent the past two decades in postings abroad for The Times and the International Herald Tribune in Europe and, most recently, in Southeast Asia. @thomasfullerNYT • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on
, Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Veteran of California Fire Coverage Crosses the Pacific to Lend a Hand
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