California’s wildfires have now burned more than 4 million acres, a record for the most acres burned in a single year. The figure, which equals an area larger than Connecticut, is more than twice the acreage burned in the state’s previous record-worst fire season, in 2018.
In addition, due in part to human-caused warming and a drying climate, California recorded its first “gigafire” since modern records began in the early 1930s. The August Complex, a group of fires burning in and around the Mendocino National Forest, has torched more than 1 million acres and counting. It is only 54 percent contained.
The blaze is slightly more than double the size of the state’s previous record holder for the largest wildfire, the 2018 Mendocino Complex.
While this is the first gigafire to occur in California, the United States has seen such massive fires before, with the most recent listing of one by the National Interagency Fire Center occurring in Alaska in 2004. Australia saw a gigafire during its wildfire crisis in January.
Scientists have linked the severity of 2020′s California wildfire season, which has fouled air quality across the state and beyond, to a combination of human-caused climate change and land-use practices. Global warming is making the dry season hotter and drier than average and leading to more frequent occurrences of days with extreme fire weather conditions. At the same time, decades of fire suppression policies have allowed vegetation, or fuel for the fires, to build up in forests. In addition, population growth has led people to build closer to lands that historically experienced relatively frequent fires.
The California fires have been blamed for at least 31 deaths.
Bad luck has also played into the rash of blazes, including a blitz of dry lightning strikes that ignited the August Complex and numerous other fires in mid-August. Those ignitions were followed by an intense heat wave and high-wind event in early September that brought extremely dry air into the region and led to some fires doubling in size in just one night.
The statistics of the 2020 wildfire season are staggering:
- Five of the top six fires in California’s modern history have occurred this year.
- This includes the largest single fire on record, which is the Creek Fire, that has charred more than 320,000 acres.
- Two of the top 20 deadliest fires have occurred this year.
- Five of the top 18 most destructive fires have occurred this year.
- Wildfires have killed 31 and burned more than 8,687 structures.
The wildfire threat in the near term does not appear to be nearly as bad as one week ago, when red flag warnings were in effect across the state and blazes tore through wine country, causing significant damage.
“Temperatures will remain warm today across the state and humidity recover[y] remains slow, continuing the increased fire danger,” Cal Fire said in a statement Monday. “More seasonal temperatures are expected by the end of the week, with a chance of some precipitation in the most northern part of the State.”