When wildfires rage, the immediate threat is obvious — but smoke from the fires actually kills far more people than the flames do. It doesn’t have to be so deadly. As fires become more frequent, smoke is leading to a public health crisis, likely contributing to more than 52,000 premature deaths across California from 2008 to 2018, we recently found.

Wildfires are becoming more catastrophic, because of their size, severity, and the increasing number of homes, businesses, and other assets located in harm’s way. As a result, the costs of government-funded wildfire suppression and recovery, property insurance, utilities, and public health are growing.

A task force commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new online tool that it says will provide a first-of-its-kind map showing all forest and fire prevention work completed in California. Following the destructive wildfires experienced across the state this past decade, a multitude of agencies has ramped up fire prevention projects on public lands and forests in an effort to prevent future disasters.

In the opening chapter of “The Ministry for the Future,” science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson details a calamitous heat wave that kills almost all the residents of a small town. In another chapter, he imagines a catastrophic flood that wipes out Los Angeles.

Author, retired wildland firefighter and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program graduate, Clare Frank, will read from her book, “Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire” at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe Prim Library this Saturday, June 10, at 1 p.m.