The night of October 8, 2017, the wind howled, the land was arid, and humidity was low. At 11:36 PM a spark from a downed power line hit dry vegetation and started a small fire. It grew into a raging, racing inferno that would consume a massive part of a small town in northern California. The fire would forever change the lives of the people of Redwood Valley and their neighbors in nearby communities. Nine lives were lost, and hundreds of structures destroyed. This became known as the Mendocino Lake Complex Fire, or Redwood Valley Fire. During and following the fire, what stood out were peoples' stories of their escapes, sorrows, miracles, and blessings: Friends lost; pets found; midnight drives on windy dirt roads through a smoky haze; flowers blooming in the ash--everyone had a memory to share. Awakening to Wildfire captures dozens of these stories and presents them to you in written and visual mediums. Through this we hope to convey an idea of the magnitude and key moments of the fire, as well as the strength, courage, and resilience of those who survived it. Publication is made possible by funding from the Redwood Valley and Santa Rosa Community Recovery Grant Program.

In this collection of richly imagined stories, Elizabeth Tallent, the master of short fiction, delivers a diverse suite of stories about men and women confronting their vulnerabilities in times of transition and challenge. Beginning in the 1980s, Elizabeth Tallent’s work appeared in some of our most prestigious literary publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and Harper’s. Marked by its quiet power and emotional nuance, her fiction garnered widespread praise. Now Tallent returns with a new collection of diverse, thematically linked, and deeply powerful stories that confirm her enduring gift for capturing relationships at their moment of transformation: marriages breaking apart, people haunted by memories of old love and reaching haltingly toward new futures. Mendocino Fire explore moments of fracture and fragmentation; it limns the wilderness of our inner psyche and brilliantly evokes the electric tension of deep emotion. In these pages, Tallent explores expectations met and thwarted, and our never-ending quest to avoid being alone. With this breathtaking collection, Elizabeth Tallent cements her rightful place in the literary pantheon beside her contemporaries Lorrie Moore, Ann Beattie, and Louise Erdrich. Visceral and surprising, profound yet elemental, Mendocino Fire is a welcome visit with a wise and familiar friend.

The 1953 Rattlesnake Fire on the Mendocino National Forest killed 15 men - most of them young missionary workers with the New Tribes Mission at Fouts Springs, California.

"United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region"

Biography of experiences by an American living in Southeast Turkey and Northern Iraq during and after the first Gulf War.

California and other wildfire-prone western states have experienced a substantial increase in the number and intensity of wildfires in recent years. Wildlands and climate experts expect these trends to continue and quite likely to worsen in coming years. Wildfires and other disasters can be particularly devastating for vulnerable communities. Members of these communities tend to experience worse health outcomes from disasters, have fewer resources for responding and rebuilding, and receive less assistance from state, local, and federal agencies. Because burning wood releases particulate matter and other toxicants, the health effects of wildfires extend well beyond burns. In addition, deposition of toxicants in soil and water can result in chronic as well as acute exposures. On June 4-5, 2019, four different entities within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop titled Implications of the California Wildfires for Health, Communities, and Preparedness at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. The workshop explored the population health, environmental health, emergency preparedness, and health equity consequences of increasingly strong and numerous wildfires, particularly in California. This publication is a summary of the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

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