In Colorado, at least two people are missing and presumed dead after a fast-spreading wildfire tore through the suburbs of Boulder County, destroying at least 1,000 homes and businesses. The fires were fanned by winds that gusted up to 110 miles per hour. They capped a year of exceptional drought across the western U.S. and came amid an unusually warm December. Louisville, Colorado, resident Paul Bassis saw his home nearly destroyed in the blaze.

Paul Bassis: “Climate change is here now, that this is not some future threat that we have to deal with at some point someday, but this is here and now. … People lost all their belongings, their memories that were in those homes, families that were raised there.”

Later in the broadcast, we’ll go to Boulder to speak with Dr. Jennifer Balch, director of the Earth Lab at the University of Colorado, about the climate change-fueled fire.