Escape from Mammoth Pool: A Wildfire Rescue that Saved 242 People (and 16 Dogs)

California is in the grip of another round of devastating wildfires, including history-making blazes that have jumped from one side of the Sierra to the other, fueled by overgrown forests thick with dry brush. But it hasn’t always been that way. For thousands of years before contact with Europeans, the Karuk people, like many other indigenous people, tended their land with fire. The Karuk tribe is one of the largest in California, spanning parts of Humboldt and Siskiyou counties along the Klamath River. When the federal government took over managing the forest in the mid-1800s, it stripped the Karuk people of their relationship with fire. Suppressing cultural burning and indigenous fire management techniques has had profound effects, contributing to the mammoth fires burning year after year across the state. In this half-hour documentary, KQED Science reporter Danielle Venton walks through the forest with tribal leaders and witnesses a controlled burn firsthand. She looks at the relationship between the Karuk and cultural burning, and the tribe’s negotiations with the state of California to get that control back Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Sep 202131min

A year ago this August, some 12,000 lightning strikes exploded across Northern California, igniting more than 585 wildfires. In the Santa Cruz Mountains scattered blazes grew into one massive burning organism — The CZU August Lightning Complex Fire — scorching some 86,000 acres, and destroying over 900 homes and Big Basin Redwoods, California’s first state park.  In the aftermath, the storytelling duo The Kitchen Sisters turned their microphones on the region, looking for what was lost and what has been found since lightning struck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Aug 202129min

This week, we continue the story of Mauricio Hernández, an undocumented immigrant who had an unexpected brush with television fame in the US. A new opportunity draws him back over the border to Mexico, but it comes at a heavy cost to his life. Reporter Levi Bridges brings us the conclusion of his documentary, Mauricio Across the Border. A version of this story was first produced by the KCRW podcast UnFictional. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Aug 202129min

Mauricio Hernández grew up in Mexico City dreaming of one day being on TV. As a teen, he crossed the border to California and got a job sweeping the floor of a body shop in LA. And then, something unexpected happened...something that led to moments of surprising fame. Reporter Levi Bridges brings us the first part of his documentary, Mauricio Across the Border. A version of this story was first produced by the KCRW podcast UnFictional. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Aug 202129min

This week, we feature some of our favorite history stories from The California Report Magazine archive.  The Forgotten Filipino-Americans Who Led the ’65 Delano Grape Strike Today, grapes in the grocery store don’t seem that controversial. But in 1965, a historic strike in California’s Central Valley set in motion the most significant campaign in modern labor history: the farmworker movement. While the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez are widely known, the contributions of Filipino workers and labor leader Larry Itliong are often overlooked. But without them the UFW wouldn't exist. Reporter Lisa Morehouse brought us this story in 2015. Breaking the Silence on Angel Island’s Immigration Station Angel Island State Park is just a short ferry ride away from San Francisco’s wharf. Most visitors make the trip to bike, picnic and catch a stunning glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge. But hidden in plain sight is a remnant of a time when California wasn’t so welcoming to immigrants. It’s a historic landmark that many Bay Area residents and visitors don’t realize exists on the scenic island: one of the oldest immigration detention facilities in the nation. Marisol Medina-Cadena visited Angel Island for this story in 2018.  The Occupation of Catalina Island And now we’re going to head to another island -- one activists occupied nearly 50 years ago in an effort to reclaim it. In August 1972, a Chicano rights group called the Brown Berets camped out on Catalina Island for three weeks. They were demanding that unused land be turned into housing.  Reporter Ariella Markowitz grew up on Catalina, but she only learned about this part of the island’s history when she brought us this story last summer.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Aug 202129min

Remember that moment just about a month ago when there was a palpable sense everything might be OK? The economy was reopening. People were packing back into restaurants. Even exhausted health care workers breathed their first deep sigh of relief — as communities across California experienced the first real lull in the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the Delta variant hit California, and rapidly took hold, particularly in unvaccinated pockets of the state. It now appears to be spreading two to three times faster than the original strain of the virus.  Plus, author Kliph Nesteroff has written about comedy for years. His latest book, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy, takes a look at a community of Hollywood talent that’s been misunderstood, stereotyped, and often thought not to exist at all.  And one out of eight new moms in California experiences postpartum depression. Two years ago, the FDA approved the first and only medication designed to TREAT postpartum depression. It’s called brexanolone and most women who get it start feeling better within days.  But the drug is outrageously expensive: $34,000. And according to a new KQED investigation, California’s largest insurer makes it extremely difficult to get.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Jul 202129min

Listener advisory: Some accounts of sexual assault in this story contain explicit details and strong language that some may find upsetting or objectionable. For nearly a decade, Jesús Antonio Castañeda Serna, better known to parishioners as Father Antonio, drew in hundreds of followers from Fresno's Latino community to his charismatic, Spanish-language congregation, earning him the nickname, "el padrecito que hace milagros" (the priest who performs miracles). Now facing up to 23 and a 1/2 years in prison, his accusers – most of them adult men – say he sexually assaulted them during healing rituals he said they needed in order to heal from curses and sexual sins. As he awaits trial, he continues to lead parishioners who swear by his innocence and say Castañeda's alleged victims made up lies to obtain legal status in the United States. TCR's Alex Hall first reported this story in 2020 and she explains where the case stands today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Jul 202129min

A lot of stories about people who are blind are sensational. They focus on the trauma of losing sight or the triumph of overcoming adversity. But what about the rich ways people who are blind experience the world every day? This week we’re going to explore that beauty in an episode from 2019, when we teamed up with the podcast the World According to Sound.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Jul 202129min