Disasters

"Firefighters in Washington state and Oregon were grappling on Wednesday with blazes that have blackened more than 200 square miles of terrain across the Pacific Northwest, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes."

"On any given day, there's a wildfire burning somewhere in the U.S. — and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Many western forests have evolved with fire, and actually benefit from the occasional wildfire."

"Two and a half years after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, the operator of Japan's wrecked Fukushima plant faces a daunting array of unknowns."

"Roads near a gas plant in Lake County were littered with twisted pieces of propane canisters early Tuesday, hours after explosions that injured at least eight people and forced the evacuation of residents up to a mile away."

"Flossie's Hawaiian adventure: Short, scattered and more powerful than many believed it would be at first."

"TOKYO — Foreign nuclear experts harshly criticized the operator of the devastated nuclear power plant at Fukushima on Friday for its delay in disclosing that highly contaminated groundwater has been leaking from the site into the ocean."

"NEW ORLEANS -- Two companies involved in the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest in U.S. history, have attempted to withhold evidence from investigating authorities, but one must now produce the documents sought, and the other is being penalized for destroying a separate set of evidentiary facts."

"Once black with oil, the Kalamazoo River runs clear now. But EPA orders dredging and says it will be years before the spill's long-term effects are known."

"The fire that severely damaged a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico subsided Thursday as sand and mud stopped up a natural gas well that blew out earlier this week, federal regulators said."