Jeva Lange 🫎

Great collection of articles about how wildfires could fundamentally remake vast swaths of US life

Including looks at the insurance challenges compelling relocation, the tricky ways to order evacuations & the reality that many people are stuck in place

I actually worked on this project with Dan Efseaff, parks director of the town of #ParadiseCalifornla, my colIeagues at the @consbio.bsky.social and #TheNatureConservancy. The world doesn’t have to be this way, or keep burning this way. We can change it with imagination and learning collaboratively.

Please give it read! Despite having recently made ~ motherhood ~ my entire personality on here, I’m super proud of this package and am grateful to my terrific editors at @heatmap.news for giving me the space and encouragement to put it together!

The ‘Buffer’ That Can Protect a Town from Wildfires Paradise, California, is snatching up high-risk properties to create a defensive perimeter and prevent the town from burning again.

Aaaand finally, we have my interview with the director of the Paradise, California, Recreation and Park District who is using his limited power and funding to prevent a catastrophe from striking the town again heatmap.news/the-aftermat...

What the Public Doesn’t Know About Fighting Wildfires Three former hotshots talk about getting up close to the flames, how it changed them, and what could actually prevent future fires.

I also talked to three former hotshots who wrote books about their experiences on fire crews and the perspective it gave them on recovery in the West. (Congrats also to Jordan Thomas, whose WHEN IT ALL BURNS is a @nationalbook.bsky.social Award finalist!!!) heatmap.news/the-aftermat...

Most Wildfires Never Make Headlines. Here’s What Happened After Two of Them. More than two years later, hundreds of people in eastern Washington are still struggling to recover.

The centerpiece of the project is a case study of the recovery effort in Medical Lake and Elk, Washington, after major fires there in 2023. Though they weren’t megafires — or perhaps because of that — recovery and rebuilding has been a fight every inch of the way heatmap.news/the-aftermat...

Why Relocating After a Wildfire Can Be Impossible Insurance often leaves homeowners with a devastating choice — to stay in the place where they lost so much, or to give up everything.

Next, I talked to four wildfire survivors about why they made the decision— or had the decision made for them — to move away after the fire heatmap.news/the-aftermat...

The Surprisingly Tricky Problem of Ordering People to Leave Wildfire evacuation notices are notoriously confusing, and the stakes are life or death. But how to make them better is far from obvious.

I’ll take you on a little tour of what I’ve been working on. First up, a piece inspired by my frustration with Google Maps not showing evacuation zones (or even being able to figure out which zone my mom was in during a recent fire near her home outside Phoenix) heatmap.news/the-aftermat...

The Aftermath How to live with wildfires

In case you missed it — I spent my last trimester working on this package for @heatmap.news on what happens after wildfires, from rebuilding to relocating. Grateful to all the survivors, hotshots, and fire experts who spoke to me for it, and proud of what came together!

heatmap.news/the-aftermath

Uh oh

Got back from my first night out since having the baby and the game is still on??? What’d I miss

I really appreciate your thoughtfulness in asking my permission, but yes, I am obsessed that this is real lol

A metal statue of a cow with a howling dog on its back on a wet suburban street. The cow has a white sheet over its head and the dog is wearing a red superhero cape. A sign on the cow’s side advertises the local Halloween celebrations.

I thought someone put a KKK hood on the local cow statue and then realized it’s supposed to be a ghost lol

IT’S HERE 🔥

Stealing your lyrics!!!

Wow

Could have had a baby that vibed to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but noooooo

Unfortunately discovered this morning that my baby is immediately soothed by me singing a seven-minute 1970s folk ballad about the largest Great Lakes freighter to ever sink

Oh my god! I can’t imagine!

Think of all of the catastrophe that hit Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Now consider that was after the hurricane went over hundreds of miles of land first. Haiti and Jamaica are going to be, comparatively, hit straight on.

I can't speak to Jamaica, but I can speak to Haiti. Haiti is incredibly mountainous. The tallest mountain in North Carolina (referencing cause of Helene) is Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet. The tallest mountain in Haiti is Pik Lasel it is 8,793 ft

Hurricane Melissa which is en route to decimate Haiti and Jamaica rapidly intensified to category 4 storm. Rapid intensification is a hallmark of climate change, but that category is only a measure of its wind speed. It is also expected to bring up to 40 inches of rain

Survived a nine-hour power outage with our newborn please clap

“Okay so that’s not actually a maple leaf but a representation of a maple leaf.” —My husband Barthesplaining a contrast card to our five-week-old

No

What!!

My mom conspiratorially asked me if I knew sometimes AI is *wrong*

It’s always after sleeping six hours in a 48 hour window that I’m like “what if I radically changed my life and reshaped my personality around something I’ve never had a passing interest in before”

It might be the sleep deprivation but what if I got really into fonts