New Scientist: San Francisco is in a declared state of emergency, its power and water supplies threatened by one of the largest fires on record in California. The blaze is 250 kilometres to the east of the city, on the fringes of Yosemite National Park. It is a grim warning of profound changes that may lie ahead, as the western US comes to terms with a new ecology of fire, wrought by climate change.
The Rim Fire is already the seventh largest in California since records began in the 1930s, having so far torched...