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California’s Catastrophic Wildfires by Isabella Isaacs-Thomas
by Isabella Isaacs-Thomas
The wildfires that are causing destruction in California, Oregon, Washington, and other Western states have become a common sight. These fires have been getting bigger and more damaging over the past few decades.
Since 2015, seven of the ten most destructive fires in California’s history have happened, and this year alone, fires have burned an unprecedented 3.1 million acres in California. This is partly due to lightning storms and a severe heat wave.
The autumn winds that usually make wildfires worse in California have already started blowing. This creates dangerous conditions like low humidity and dry plants, which help the fires spread. One of the biggest fires, the August Complex, is still not contained and is now the largest fire in California's history.
In Oregon, about 10 percent of the population received evacuation notices last week. Although the fires there burned more slowly over the weekend, the smoke has created unhealthy air quality, forcing people to stay indoors. So far, at least 35 deaths have been confirmed in California, Washington, and Oregon, and officials expect that number to rise.
Wildfires happen naturally in many states, but California, with its large population, has a lot at stake when fires spread uncontrollably. A report from 2019 by CoreLogic found that California’s cities are at high risk for wildfire damage because many homes are located in areas that are prone to fires.
Because of the ongoing destruction, poor air quality, and skies turned orange by smoke, many people are linking climate change, extreme weather, and wildfire season. As the planet warms, experts believe that droughts and heat waves—both of which contributed to this year’s devastating fires—will become more severe over time.
The effects of climate change are already being felt, but that doesn’t mean that a future filled with regular destruction of communities and ecosystems, along with loss of life, is completely unavoidable.
Ninety-five percent of wildfires in California are caused by human activity. While we can’t control the winds that fuel these fires in the fall or the droughts that often affect the region, we can change our daily choices that impact how and why wildfires start.
To understand how wildfire season is getting worse in California, Lynne Tolmachoff, who is the chief of the CalStats program at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), points out how long the season lasts now compared to previous years.
When Tolmachoff started at CalFire twenty years ago, seasonal firefighters worked about five months a year, from mid-July to early October. Now, she says, some firefighters are working up to nine months a year because the season starts earlier and ends later than before.
“Now we’re seeing it starting in May and sometimes going into November, and a couple of years ago, we even had to go into December,” Tolmachoff said. “Sometimes, in Southern California, depending on the weather patterns, they may not even have a fire season. They may have to stay ready because they see wildfires all year round.”
This year’s fires have already broken records for the total acres burned, mainly due to over 14,000 lightning strikes that hit California in August, combined with very dry conditions. Although lightning causes only 5 percent of wildfires in California, Tolmachoff says the fires it starts tend to burn more land than those caused by humans.
This is partly because lightning usually strikes in mountainous areas where, if a fire starts, it can be harder to control due to the difficult terrain. “Dry thunderstorms” happen when storms create thunder and lightning, but most of the rain never reaches the ground, allowing fires to smolder.
A similar situation occurred in 2008 when a severe thunderstorm system in Northern and Central California caused over 6,000 lightning strikes that met “record dry conditions” and started more than 2,000 fires, according to CalFire. At that time, that season was considered one of the worst on record.
What makes 2020 different, Tolmachoff noted, is that the lightning struck not just the mountains but also flat areas and parts of the state that are more populated. Two groups of fires caused by lightning strikes in the Bay Area this year have already been named among the ten most destructive fires in California history.
While lightning fires cause a lot of damage, they make up only a small part of the annual wildfire destruction in California. Most of the damage is caused by human activity, such as arson, power lines, and even a pyrotechnic device used at a gender reveal party, which sparked the still-uncontained El Dorado fire that started in early September.
Source: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
This year’s heat wave, along with years of severe drought, has made California’s dry plants especially good fuel for fires. The usual fall winds may make this already terrible fire season even worse—a concern that Tolmachoff is particularly worried about. When humidity is low, even if temperatures drop, those wind gusts can spread fires to different areas, often leading to the “largest, most destructive fires.”
“Until we get some significant rain, we will remain in fire season. Even if the temperatures cool down, we’ll still see fires,” Tolmachoff said. “So that’s probably our biggest concern, is the fact that we’ve already burned over [3 million] acres and yet we still have probably two good months at least of fire season to go.”
The infamous 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people, was caused by “electrical transmission lines owned and operated” by the utility company Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and made worse by the usual fire-friendly conditions of dry plants, low humidity, and strong winds. That year’s fire season was the most destructive on record until this year surpassed it, and it’s still considered the deadliest.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the United States Geological Survey, noted that the major drought that hit California from 2011 to 2019 killed a huge number of plants in the state. He said that more than a million trees in the Sierra Nevada died during that drought, providing perfect fuel for the fires that are now devastating that area.
Keeley acknowledges that climate change “almost certainly” makes fire-friendly conditions in California worse, but he says that’s only part of the story.
The landscape in California is very different in various areas, and different parts of the state have different conditions that can support wildfires. But one thing that stays the same is that humans are responsible for most of the fires that happen every year. Keeley argues that we should focus on human activity when looking at the main causes of large wildfires, pointing to both the practice of fire suppression and California’s growing population as key factors.
“The bottom line is this is a multifactor problem. It’s not just climate change, it’s not just the drought, it’s not just dieback. It’s management activities that have suppressed fires for over a century — a lot of things going on,” Keeley said. “The way I see the current situation in California, this is the perfect storm. Everything is coming together at once.”
While this summer’s fires were fueled by lightning storms as well as human activity, Keeley noted that the fires caused by the yearly autumn winds are “always” started by people, whether by accident or on purpose. He said that power line failures have caused most of the large fall fires in the state over the past twenty years.
Source: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Inadequate maintenance is partly to blame, according to courts. The New York Times reported that PG&E’s electrical network—which serves about 16 million people in Central and Northern California—has been linked to several destructive fires, and regulators have found that the company “violated state law or could have done more to make its equipment safer” in several cases.
Power grids have also expanded to support growing communities in the state, creating more chances for disaster. Keeley emphasized that California’s population has grown by 6 million since the year 2000.
“That 6 million increase in population means more people pushed out into areas of urban sprawl, of dangerous fuels, increased ignition sources, increased potential for people getting killed, an increase in the electric grid,” Keeley said. “So if there’s anything that can explain the increase in fires in the last 20 years, my feeling is it’s population growth.”
In addition to issues with infrastructure like power grids, reducing human error on an individual level is crucial to preventing future disasters. That’s why one of CalFire’s goals is to educate as many Californians as possible about how wildfires work, what causes them, and the fact that they can affect communities in any part of the state—urban, rural, or anything in between.
This year’s wildfires aren’t the only natural disasters or extreme weather events to hit communities hard over the past few months, bringing attention to the global need to address the growing climate crisis. But given the scale of that task, in the context of the California wildfires, Keeley argues that looking for practical, human solutions to human-caused problems can offer some hope.
“It’s a positive view that we don’t just have to feel like we’re doomed to climate change,” Keeley said. “We can change our outcomes, in part due to how we deal with these situations.”
Video: Cal Fire: PG&E responsible for Camp Fire. Scripps news on youtube
please make answers short and to the point with relatively simple wording
1 answer
The tone of the article "California’s Catastrophic Wildfires" by Isabella Isaacs-Thomas is authoritative. It presents factual information supported by statistics and expert opinions, such as the data on the number of wildfires and the historical context of fire seasons. For example, the article mentions that “since 2015, seven of the ten most destructive fires in California’s history have happened,” and incorporates quotes from Lynne Tolmachoff and Jon Keeley, establishing credibility.
In contrast, the tone of the video from Scripps about PG&E's responsibility for the Camp Fire seems to be more conversational and urgent. It focuses on personal stories and the emotional impact of the fires on communities, aiming to draw viewers in rather than solely inform them. The video likely uses visuals and real-time footage of the fires, adding an emotional weight that differs from the article's more detached analytical approach.
In summary, the article adopts an authoritative tone through data and expert insight, while the video employs a more conversational tone, emphasizing personal stories and immediate consequences.
