Last year the nation watched as images of weary firefighters battling a massive inferno in the Angeles National Forest blazed across their TV screens. After starting on Aug. 26, 2009, the Station Fire went on to burn 160,577 acres, injure 22 people and kill two firefighters before it was fully contained nearly two months later.

Raising cattle on the Van Vleck farm near Rancho Murieta is a legacy that has passed from father to son for more than 150 years. Now struggling to keep the family ranch, Stan Van Vleck came up with an electrifying idea: Install solar panels to boost income.

When Californians went to the polls on Nov. 2, they did more than just select a slate of new Capitol denizens. With the eyes of the world upon them, voters emphatically rejected Proposition 23, the oil industry-backed initiative to block Assembly Bill 32, the state’s groundbreaking effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A Sacramento software startup has launched an iPhone application for runners that picks music to go with a workout and can add customized coaching instructions along with the beat. When users pay to download the coaching data, a donation goes to a nonprofit of the coach’s choice.

Charles Rieger is building a case for going green. As the executive director of the Solano Center for Business Innovation, the umbrella organization for the newly formed Solano Green Business Council, it’s Rieger’s job to plant the seeds for a greener economy.

When West Sacramento-based Clark Pacific went shopping for a third location to expand its precast concrete business, it found a home with a familiar name: the former Spreckels Sugar Mill, just outside Woodland.

Rancho Cordova recently celebrated the annexation of a finger of land — Folsom Boulevard east of Sunrise Boulevard and south of Highway 50 — with the rest of the incorporated city.

For years, the debate over climate change centered almost exclusively on science: Is global warming occurring, and if so, are humans causing it? But with the economy still struggling, the argument has shifted to one of dollars and cents.

Dr. Jan Nolta is a whirlwind of energy, and this July morning she is blitzing through UC Davis’ brand-new Institute for Regenerative Cures, a state-of-the-art lab where scientists and researchers are working on breakthrough discoveries and stem cell therapies.

Transforming the Power Inn area bears a striking resemblance to the way an ancient lake transforms into a meadow. It takes a lot of infill, it happens over decades and the result can be a jewel that brings new vitality to the landscape.