September 5, 2022: -Dozens of firefighters came to an Amazon warehouse in Fresno, California, as major plumes of smoke poured from the roof of the 880,000-square-foot storage in 2020.
A few 220 solar panels and other equipment at the facility, known as FAT1, were affected by the three-alarm fire, caused by “an undetermined electrical event within the solar system mounted on top of the roof,” Leland Wilding, Fresno’s fire investigator, wrote.
About 60 firefighters are calling to an even larger Amazon facility in Perryville, Maryland, a little over a year later, to put out a two-alarm blaze, local news outlets reported.
In the intervening months, according to internal company documents, at least four other Amazon fulfillment centers caught fire or experienced electrical explosions because of the failures in their solar energy-generating systems.
The documents, which have never been made public, indicate that between April 2020 and June 2021, Amazon experienced “critical fire or arc flash events” in nearly six of its 47 North American sites with solar installations, which affects 12.7% of facilities. Arc flashes are a kind of electrical explosion.
“The rate of dangerous incidents is not acceptable and above industry averages,” an Amazon employee wrote in one of the internal reports.
The solar snafus underscore the challenge Amazon, and different large corporations face in their quest to reduce their environmental footprint and reliance on fossil fuels. Amazon has been the most aggressive. In 2019, founder Jeff Bezos launched the Climate Pledge, promising the biggest online retailer would zero out emissions by 2040, embracing renewable energy and moving away from gas-guzzling delivery vans, which included a billion-dollar-plus investment in electric vehicle company Rivian.
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Systems thinking is an approach that focuses on understanding how different parts of a system interact and influence one another within a whole. It is a holistic framework considering interrelationships and patterns rather than static snapshots. By expanding perspectives, systems thinking clarifies complex situations and can spur innovation.
A definite ‘NO’ to the question if struggling families had child care asked by a group of committed volunteers in the San Fernando Valley in 1974, urged the volunteers to look for a way to support families struggling to find quality child care, development, and education services for their families. That year, the San Fernando Valley Child Care Consortium and the Mayor’s Child Care and Junior Task Force proposed the first child care resource center in the San Fernando Valley. Doris McLain was elected chairperson as Mayor Bradley accepted the proposal and gave the newly founded Child Care Resource Center (CCRC) space in Van Nuys City Hall Center. CCRC began 45 years to help working moms find child care.
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