Huge Flames Spreading Fast in Communities Around California.

The California wildfires started September 5th, 2020, in Southern and Northern California. Looking at a map you see 14 sites currently on fire across California.  It’s hard to imagine. Cities like Los Angeles reached high temperatures. “Los Angeles county hit a record 121 degrees and Death Valley recently reached 131 degrees”according to a New York Times Article. As explained in a New York Times article on October 27th  , there are four factors at play: along with increasingly high temperatures, overgrown brush, high winds and people not using caution in these conditions. One of the  fires started because of a “smoke-generating pyrotechnic device” used at a gender reveal party.  According to a Cal Fire press release the device sparked the El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino County.This fire alone has consumed 18,000 acres. Across California, there’ve been 9,177 incidents, 4,194,148 Acres have been burned because of the fire as 10,488 structures were damaged or destroyed  and 32 people have died. The 2020 wildfires have been the “Deadliest fire” said on The Mercury News.  This compared with the Australian Wildfires earlier this year which destroyed 25.4 million acres of land, seems like very little. However, when you consider the makeup of the australian wildfires, consuming mainly unlivable arid desert, the california wildfires are far more impactful on humans.Communities are losing everything. Families have lost their homes, businesses. Small business workers lost everything and animals ¨who were smoked out of their homes and burned alive¨. The total cost of repairing after the 2020 wildfires will be more than 130 million dollars.(https://www.peta.org/features/animal-agriculture-causes-wildfires/#:~:text=Wildfires%20in%20California&text=These%20fires%20have%20claimed%20at,their%20homes%20and%20burned%20alive.).Farmers lost land and crops because of the fire. This year’s fire has destroyed 8,200 structures, resulting in over 53,000 people being displaced from their homes. The 2020 California wildfires are record setters in the worst way, they have consumed more than 4 million acres, twice the land of the 2018 wildfires, the worst to date. (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-03/california-wildfires-burn-nearly-4-million-acres-in-2020) One thing you can do to help is donate money to the red cross.

Want to help communities who have lost their homes?

https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2020/red-cross-response-to-western-wildfires.html#:~:text=YOU%20CAN%20HELP%20by%20making,to%20make%20a%20%2410%20donation. 

Want more information? Read some of our sources:

4 Million Acres Have Burned In California. Why That’s … – NPR

www.npr.org › 2020/10/07 › four-million-acres-have-bur…

Wildfires & Climate Change — Tracking California

trackingcalifornia.org › climate-change › wildfires 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/07/us/california-fire-el-dorado-gender-reveal-trnd/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/climate/wildfires-globally.html

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/02/map-31-people-killed-in-california-wildfires-2020-season/#:~:text=Thirty-two%20deaths%20have%20been,Berry%20Creek%20and%20Feather%20Falls.