The fires have ravaged California for months now. Some are so monstrous they’ve acquired names: Valley Fire, Butte Fire, Rough Fire.
The raging flames that have scorched northern California this past summer are approaching Biblical proportion. About 700,000 acres are now barren and black. Over 20,000 people have been evacuated. Approximately 15,000 firefighters have been sent, in packs, to fight the blazes. In the month of July alone, California spent 23 million dollars fighting the wildfires.
An entire town, Middletown, has been destroyed. The magnificent, ancient sequoias are now being threatened. And fire officials say the worst may yet arrive.
Why does California (and to a lesser degree the other 49 states) seem to be increasingly plagued by fire?
From April through October, California experiences a hot dry climate. The state is also graced with large areas of wilderness, national forests, and national parks, which contain large quantities of timber and brush.
But unlike similar dry, timber-laden states, California also deals with the Santa Anna and Diablo winds that gust off the Pacific Ocean. This combination of dry climate, wind, and extensive flora creates an ideal tinderbox condition.
Since 1932, scientists have been monitoring wildfires in California. Of the 20 largest fires, 14 have occurred in the last 20 years. The Valley Fire, which has so far killed five people and injured four firefighters, could possibly be the worst fire ever – once the smoke finally clears.
According to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, 95 percent of California’s fires are caused by man. Power tools, campfires, cigarette butts, downed power lines, arson, and even gunfire are chief culprits, particularly in more populous southern California. As commercial and residential development pushes more people closer to fire-prone timberlands, wildfire activity will only increase.
The California fires and other U.S. blazes are now on track to make 2015 the worst year for fires in the nation’s history. According to International Business Times, “In the Western U.S., the average annual temperature has risen 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970, leading soil and plant moisture to evaporate, rainfall to diminish and snowpack to rapidly melt — all factors that increase the risks of longer, stronger wildfires.” California is now in its fourth year of drought, which has dramatically exacerbated the fire quotient.
And there’s a financial cost. According to the research firm Headwaters Economics in a 2013 report, “Federal wildfire protection and suppression efforts now average more than $3 billion a year, compared to less than $1 billion in the 1990s.”
As temperatures continue to rise, some scientists predict that wildfire activity could actually double in the next 35 years.
And as California Governor Jerry Brown said on Monday, watching helplessly as his state toasted like a giant marshmallow: “This is the future… Climate change is not going to go away.”