Yet even modest numbers of humans literally burned their way into history. As soon as humans arrive on the scene, “suddenly, there’s tons of fire in the record,” Lindsey said.
These massive fires changed everything, the researchers argue. While their sources of ignition were quite different from the power lines and exhaust pipes that tend to spark fires today, our Pleistocene ancestors had few tools at their disposal to extinguish a blaze once it spread out of control.
Once-abundant junipers and oaks could tolerate drought, but had no defenses against fire. They disappeared, and fire-adapted pines and chaparral took their place. In a landscape stripped of shade, shelter and hiding places, food chains were upended. Intense fire may have altered water flows or cut off migration routes.
According to the fossil record, all of this devastation took barely 200 years.
“This is the most significant extinction since a meteor slammed into Earth and wiped out all the big dinosaurs. It’s probably the first pulse of the extinction crisis that we’re in today,” Lindsey said.
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As rivers gorged with snowmelt begin to recede, and egrets glide over catch basins brimming with runoff, officials say that an aggressive and collaborative response — as well as a cooler-than-anticipated spring — helped them avoid massive community flooding and damage to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the city’s century-old water lifeline.
While an armada of heavy equipment remains at the ready to shore up flooding infrastructure and clear debris, forecasters expect the region’s waterways to return to normal by next month.
“Fortunately, much of the region experienced a long cool spring and cooler-than-expected beginning of summer,” said aqueduct manager Adam Perez.
Overall, the flow of snowmelt streaming down the Sierra has been manageable, and has triggered only minor damage, he said.
When Navajo Grey Hills weaver Barbara Teller Ornelas saw the original Barbie dolls — all blonde hair, blue eyes and 1950s clothes — she certainly didn’t see herself.
That version of Barbie stood alone for many years until the First Edition Native American Barbie was released in 1997 as part of the company's “Dolls of the World” Collection.
Teller Ornelas bought one of the 1997 Navajo Barbies for herself and another for her daughter, Sierra Ornelas, but she wasn’t happy with the outfit. She told her daughter she would weave an outfit for them one day, and she did.
Now, Teller Ornelas’ efforts to authenticate the Navajo Barbie are drawing renewed attention with the opening of the “Barbie” movie, which is prompting Indigenous women to give the character a Native flair that is missing in the popular movie.
@realmattthewelder #duet with @Lahaina Fire Updates #lahainafire #hawaii #hawaiifire #hawaiifires ♬ original sound - Lahaina Fire Updates
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque and Bernalillo County Fire Rescue crews are responding to a large fire at a plastic storage facility in Mesa Del Sol Sunday.
The city has issued a warning for people to avoid the area, and to stay inside, and keep windows and doors closed.
Officials say the fire started at 5301 Hawking Drive SE Sunday. They say the winds are unpredictable, and the fire is not contained.
Thick black smoke could be seen from downtown Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Los Lunas.
A persistent “heat dome” that has baked much of the American Southwest for most of July will ease again this week, bringing average to below-average temperatures to Southern California and even a chance of precipitation.
Highs in downtown Los Angeles will peak on Monday and will dip to the low 80s by Wednesday, when remnants of Tropical Storm Eugene in Baja Mexico could bring showers to the region as early as Tuesday evening, and “maybe even a thunderstorm,” said said Eric Boldt, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
