“While wildfires are a natural part of the California landscape, the fire season in California and the West begins earlier and ends later each year,” Cal Fire said. “Climate change is seen as a key driver of this trend.”
Cal Fire data shows that this year’s fires damaged or destroyed 119 structures; no deaths have been reported. Last year, more than 10,000 structures were damaged or destroyed, and 33 people were killed.
There have been 4,991 fires in California since January, mostly due to extremely hot and dry conditions, according to Cal Fire. Around the same time last year, about 700 fewer fires had burned in the Golden State.
Warmer temperatures in the spring and summer combined with a reduced snowpack and early snowmelt create drier seasons, the agency said. This causes a decrease in the humidity of the vegetation, making forests and plants more vulnerable to forest fires.
“The length of the fire season is estimated to have increased by 75 days in the Sierras and appears to correspond to an increase in the extent of wildfires across the state,” according to Cal Fire.
Severe drought remains in the forecast across the west and northwest for next week, according to the Hazard Outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Prediction Center.
While much of the region will continue to be hot and dry, parts of the southwest, including Arizona and New Mexico, could experience excessive precipitation, the agency said. However, that will not be enough to put out the fires raging in the United States.
Fires across the country set records
Sixty-seven current large fires have burned nearly 918,000 acres in 12 states, the National Interagency Fire Center said Tuesday.
This year’s 33,953 fires had burned about 2 million acres on Tuesday, beating the previous year’s tally for the same period, according to the fire hall.
While this represents the highest number of fires on July 13 of any year since 2011 (which saw 39,888 fires), the total is only slightly higher than the 2017 total.
The area burned – 2,061,054 as of Tuesday, to be exact – is the highest total for the period since 2016 saw more than 2.4 million acres burned, but it is much less than that. many previous years, including 2015, when more than 4.9 million acres were burned on July 13 and 2011, while about 5.8 million acres were consumed by the flames during this period .
It’s worthless as fires can spread quickly in dry and windy conditions, changing stats quickly. Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, which is currently burning, and last year’s East Troublesome Fire in Colorado spanned over 100,000 acres in one day, for example.
A fire in northern California has already burned down some structures and threatens at least 600 others, officials said Monday evening.
The river fire in Mariposa and Madera counties reached 9,000 acres after it started on Sunday, according to the Cal Fire incident page.
The blaze is burning west of Highway 41, a road leading to Yosemite National Park, Cal Fire spokesman Jaime Williams told CNN Monday morning.
The Beckwourth compound fire, the largest fire in the State of Gold, charred 91,200 acres and is 26% contained, according to federal forest fire tracking service InciWeb. The blaze includes the Dotta fire and the burning sugar fire in the Plumas National Forest – both started by lightning almost two weeks ago.
Nearly 2,000 homes are at risk, US Forest Service spokesman Mike Ferris said.
Meanwhile, the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon grew over 100,000 acres in one day and has now charred over 153,000 acres, according to InciWeb.
“The fire behavior we are seeing on the Bootleg Fire is among the most extreme you can find, and the firefighters are seeing conditions they have never seen before,” the incident commander said this week, Al Lawson.
Further north, residents near Bend, Oregon were ordered to evacuate as the Grandview fire raged in Deschutes County late Monday evening.
“This is a Level 3 Evacuation Notice (Go now!) For all homes north of Holmes Road due to a forest fire. There is immediate and imminent danger and you must evacuate immediately. Leave immediately and as quickly as possible, “said the Deschutes County Sheriff. Office said in a message on
Twitter.The Grandview fire burned 4,500 acres and was 5% contained on Tuesday morning, according to InciWeb.
CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
