Record-setting Wildfire Season

By Julia Fay

This year’s wildfire season (typically May - October) has been record setting in California. Over four million acres have been burned, which is more than double the previous record. As of the start of October there are more than 15 separate fires still burning. This season has yielded both the largest non-complex fire and the largest recorded fire in California history.

The Creek fire burned 333,880 acres of land which has prompted the Southern California Edison’s Incident Management Team to ask that boat owners remove their boats from Huntington Lake in Fresno County so they can lower the water level.

The August complex is made up of 38 separate fires that merged to burn over one million acres in seven separate counties. For reference, Montgomery County is 324,000 acres, and a football field is about 1.32 acres. So far it alone has damaged six structures and destroyed 52.

Over the course of this year, over 30 lives have been lost, along with at least 9,220 structures according to CAL FIRE. One fire that is relatively small compared to those, but still made news, is the El Dorado fire. This particular blaze gained media attention because it was started by an accident at a gender reveal party involving a pyrotechnic device, something much more avoidable than a random lightning strike, and caused over 21,000 people to have to evacuate their homes. The headlines caused Jenna Myers Karvunidis, one of the people credited with the start of the gender-reveal party trend, to say in a Facebook post, “Stop it. Stop having these stupid parties.”

The smoke from all the fires in California reached the east coast in mid September, causing hazy sunsets and fears of reduced air quality. A lot of the fires are more than 50% contained, meaning there is hope for this record-breaking season to come to an end relatively soon.