Climate Point: Natural disasters across the nation

Earthquakes in California . A soaking tropical system along the East Coast. Tornadoes in Ohio . A melting glacier in Alaska . What natural disaster didn't we have on our collective bingo cards this week?

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to stories about climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent with USA TODAY's climate team, writing from a Florida water-logged by Debby's slow passage. I think I speak for many when I say goodbye and good riddance, when it finally moves out of the northeastern U.S. this weekend.

Shake and burn

Bakersfield, California and the surrounding area was rocked by a magnitude 5.2 earthquake on Tuesday, but the tremors didn't stop there. By Wednesday, there had been more than 277 aftershocks including two that were magnitude 4.0 or greater. People reported feeling the quake as far north as San Francisco, and as far south as San Diego. In true California fashion, the quake did not disrupt the baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Anytime such a large earthquake hits, it begs the question whether the next quake will be the big one. Experts say there's no real way to tell whether a large quake is going to be followed by something bigger – until after it happens. "We have never found any characteristic that makes a quake more likely to be a foreshock," said seismologist Lucy Jones in a social media post .

Also in California, the Park Fire, fourth largest in the state's history, saw a resurgence, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported. This USA TODAY graphic illustration lets you track the 427,067-acre fire.

More than 6,500 personnel are assigned to the fire. One firefighter was injured this week, then treated and released from a hospital, Jahaira Zaragoza, a Cal Fire public information officer, told the Record Searchlight, a USA TODAY network newspaper. But you won't find the report listed on the agency's online incident summary . Ariana Hirschfield, a public information officer at Cal Fire headquarters, said the general policy is to not report firefighter injuries if the firefighter isn't hospitalized for at least 24 hours.

Fire season

Nearly 100 active wildfires are being monitored across the nation this week, with evacuation orders in place on 17 of those. Oregon is nearing its modern record for acres burned as the season reaches its peak, the Salem Statesman Journal reported. The majority of Oregon, except for the northwest is at elevated risk for wildfire through September.

In Colorado, hundreds were evacuated by the nearly 10,000 acre Alexander Mountain Fire. Another Colorado fire was started by a bird, said the West Metro Fire Department in Lakewood. A bird that flew into an electrical line fell flaming into dry brush and grass and ignited a three-acre brush fire. A study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2022 counted 44 fires started by birds in the United States between 2014 and 2018.

In a project supported by the Pulitzer Center , Keith Matheny at the Detroit Free Press is writing about wildfires in Canada and the western U.S. Fires of increasing intensity are burning larger areas as the climate and forests change. Matheny reports that some experts believe part of the solution to reducing catastrophic megafires involves practices that go back thousands of years , to the land's first inhabitants: fighting fire with fire. The Indigenous people of Canada for centuries intentionally set fires on the landscape for a variety of cultural needs.

Mining controversies in Arizona

In Arizona, the operator of a uranium mine south of the Grand Canyon said it would pause ore shipments across the Navajo Nation after tribal leaders deployed police to stop the trucks. A crowd of about 100, organized by Navajo Nation First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren, gathered in one protest. Energy Fuels Inc. said it would try to address concerns raised by Navajo President Buu Nygren and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Republic reported.

The Hualapai Tribe and environmental group Earthjustice have sued the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management in a bid to stop the drilling of dozens of test holes as a company searches for lithium at a location near Wikieup. The tribe is concerned about the danger of irreparable damage to one of its most sacred places.

States bicker over safety labeling

Iowa and California, which have warred over the coastal state's regulations on pork and egg production in the past, are gearing up for battle again, this time over California’s efforts to require warnings labels on a popular weed killer, reports the Des Moines Register. Iowa, Nebraska and nine other states filed a petition Wednesday with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking it to adopt a rule preventing states like California from adding warning labels to chemicals that exceed the federal agency’s findings about their potential hazards. The EPA regulates the use of chemicals, often requiring labeling that directs farmers on when and how products such as herbicides can be used, among other precautions.

Great Lakes quake

A rare earthquake was reported in Lake Michigan on August 2. Although quakes can create ripping giant waves after water is displaced, no similar event was expected in Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The 2.9 magnitude earthquake occurred 24 miles offshore, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the first time in 100 years that a earthquake over 2.5 magnitude had rocked the lake.

Waterways safe for Olympics and other sports?

Given all the discussion about water quality in the Seine and whether it's safe for Olympic athletes to swim, the Providence Journal considered improvement to its own local rivers and whether they'd be safe for swimming.

The short answer is no, reported Alex Kuffner, but that doesn't mean the Woonasquatucket and Providence rivers are dirtier than the Seine. So how do the downtown rivers in Providence compare with the Seine? Not too badly.

Just two weeks before a planned Ironman triathlon in the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky, officials are closely watching a harmful algal bloom. Blue-green algae and cyanobacteria are a natural part of freshwater ecosystems and are not all toxic, but state scientists sampled the nearby bloom Aug. 1 and detected microcystin toxins harmful to humans and aquatic life.

Panda premier

The public got its first look at the new pandas at the San Diego Zoo on August 8, a little more than a month after their arrival in the U.S. The giant pandas, named Xin Bao and Yun Chuan, are the first to enter the country in 21 years. "It's panda-mania here in San Diego," California's Governor Gavin Newsom said during remarks for the ribbon cutting at the Zoo's newly renovated area for the pandas, called "Panda Ridge."

“Working together with our international partners to protect this iconic wildlife species, we can achieve remarkable outcomes for conservation and cultural exchange, benefiting our communities and the planet," said Newsom, according to a news release. Working together over 30 years, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and China Wildlife Conservation Association developed a giant panda milk formula and other neonatal conservation techniques that increased the survival of nursery-reared cubs to over 90%, the Zoo stated this week.

More pandas are expected in the year ahead. The Smithsonian Zoo in Washington D.C. expects to receive two pandas by the end of the year and the San Francisco Zoo is on tap.

Read on for more, including why there's more to the story than category when it comes to hurricanes and how to catch the Perseids. Some stories below may require a subscription. Sign up and get access to all eNewspapers in the USA TODAY Network. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here .

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Climate Point: Natural disasters across the nation