Scope of California Wildfires Is Staggering

It’s hard to have words. How do we embrace and speak fully to the reality of this new planet we are living on? 

 

Our human neglect, denial, ignorance, and minimization of the manmade climate crisis over the course of decades now has brought us to this place of the horrifying new normal. These devastating wildfires and hurricanes, floods and droughts, searing summer heat and fierce winter storms, melting glaciers and rising waters, and loss of homes and crops and whole communities are not going away. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg of more to come. 

 

We choose to declare the climate crisis we’re in the midst of and collaborate nationwide and globally to enact radical systemic changes NOW or we perish. It’s that serious. 

 

There is no more time to resist the changes needed if we are to survive and make a habitable planet possible for our children and grandchildren and all children of all of the species everywhere possible. — Molly

Here’s what you need to know:

• More than 1.4 million acres have burned across California.
• Firefighters have made progress against the biggest fires.
• California schools are grappling with fires and coronavirus fears all at once.
• California’s redwoods can withstand fire, but another threat looms: climate change.
• Concerns over poor air quality have closed schools and parks.
• Some who are seeking shelter with friends worry about exposing them to the virus.
• Smoke and fire in Napa is almost business as usual. 

More than 1.4 million acres have burned across California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Monday addressed a state besieged by wildfires of staggering scale and spread, assuring residents that “we’ve deployed every resource at our disposal” as the number of active fires grew to 625.

 

And even though a new front of lightning storms was less severe than expected, Mr. Newsom emphasized that almost 300 lightning strikes overnight had sparked 10 new fires — every one of which could have become a new threat.

More than 7,000 fires have chewed through 1.4 million acres this year, making this fire season one of the most active ever. By this point in 2019, 4,292 fires had burned 56,000 acres across the state, Mr. Newsom said.

Tens of thousands of firefighters from across California and states from as far away as Kansas have been enlisted to help contain the blazes, which have been linked to seven deaths.

 

Hundreds of fire engines have been sent out across a huge portion of the state — including to towering forests that are being charred by fires “the likes of which haven’t been seen in modern recorded history,” Mr. Newsom said.

But climate experts warned that the activity so early in the year and across such varied landscapes offers a preview of a fire and flood cycle that is likely to keep getting worse.

 

“I’m running out of superlatives,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mr. Swain said he expected this year to have the greatest number of acres burned under California’s modern fire suppression regimen.
 

More troubling, he said, was that fires have burned ecosystems where there were not typically wildfires. Fire is common in expanses of dry grass and chaparral, particularly following a dry winter like the one this year.

 

Please continue this article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/us/california-fires.html