![]() “Dry thunderstorms” occur when storms cause thunder and lightning, but most or all of their precipitation never actually reaches the ground, allowing flames to smolder.Ī similar phenomenon occurred back in 2008 when a severe thunderstorm system in Northern and Central California caused more than 6,000 lightning strikes that met “record dry conditions” and sparked more than 2,000 fires, according to CalFire. That’s due in part to where lightning tends to strike - usually, in mountainous regions with high elevations where, if a fire does start, it can be harder to contain due to the inaccessible nature of the terrain. Although lightning accounts for just 5 percent of wildfires in California, Tolmachoff said the fires it sparks tend to burn more acreage than those caused by humans. This year’s fires, which have already broken state records in terms of total acres burned, were largely caused by the more than 14,000 lightning strikes that hit California during the month of August in combination with severely dry conditions. They may have to stay staffed, because they’re seeing wildfires year round.” “Sometimes, Southern California, depending on what happens with their weather patterns, may never even go out of fire season. “Now we’re seeing it starting in May and going occasionally into November, and even a couple years ago, we had to go into December,” Tolmachoff said. Now, she said, some firefighters are working as many as nine months out of the year, as the season has begun to start earlier and end later than it has in the past. When Tolmachoff started at CalFire two decades ago, seasonal firefighters were expected to work about five months out of the year, from around mid-July to early October. Here are three charts to help you understand those fires, and what experts say we need to keep in mind if we want to reduce the risk of future disaster.įor a sense of how wildfire season is worsening in California, Lynne Tolmachoff, who serves as chief of the CalStats program at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), points to how long that season lasts now, compared to previous years. ![]() Although we can’t control the yearly winds that fuel those fires in the fall, or the droughts that regularly choke the region, we can address the daily human decisions that have a direct impact on how and why wildfires break out in the first place. Ninety-five percent of wildfires in California are caused by human activity. ![]() ![]() The effects of climate change are already being felt, but that’s not to say that a future marked by regular, widespread devastation of communities and ecosystems, in addition to loss of life, is completely unavoidable. As the planet continues to warm, experts predict that droughts and heat waves - both factors that paved the way for this year’s catastrophic fires - will only intensify with time. Given the ongoing destruction, oppressive air and ominous skies turned orange by the smoke, many are once again drawing a connection between the changing climate, extreme weather events and wildfire season. A 2019 report from the company CoreLogic found that California’s metropolitan areas “dominate” a list of the top 15 regions most at risk for wildfire damage, due to its “high density of homes located in wildfire-susceptible areas.” At least 35 deaths have been confirmed across California, Washington and Oregon, and officials have said the toll is expected to grow.Īnnual wildfires occur naturally in multiple states, but highly populated California has a lot to lose when fires burn widely and out of control. Meanwhile, about 10 percent of Oregon’s population were placed under some level of evacuation notice last week, and although wildfires burned more slowly in that state over the weekend, smoke created unhealthy to hazardous air quality that is forcing residents across that state and the broader Pacific Northwest to stay inside. The autumn winds that typically fuel the bulk of destruction during California’s wildfire season have already begun to blow, contributing to dangerous conditions like low humidity and dry vegetation that have helped fuel fires including the yet-uncontained August Complex, now the largest fire in California history. Seven of the top 10 most destructive fires in California’s history have occurred since 2015, and this year’s fires have already burned an unprecedented 3.1 million acres in that state so far, driven in part by lightning storms and an extreme heat wave. The devastating wildfires tearing across California, Oregon, Washington and several other Western states are an increasingly familiar scene, as blazes have become larger and more destructive over the past several decades.
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