Summer is here and hot with the possibility of another record-breaking wildfire season in California. So for the first time ever, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) brought together experts from universities, community organizations and government agencies across the nation to discuss the future of the Golden State and other regions in the West threatened by wildfires. 

One sweltering week last July, the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center took researchers and officials from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) on a reality tour of some of California’s most polluted communities.  On the tour, scientists saw up close the environmental health issues residents faced — a glass factory next to an elementary school, an oil and gas facility in a residential neighborhood, a formerly agricultural community transformed into an industrial site through