California wildfires

Location| California, United States
Statistics
Cost| Billions in damages annually
Date(s)| Ongoing, with high frequency since 2000
Burned area| Over 4 million acres burned in some years (e.g., 2020)
Cause| Lightning, human activity, power lines, Santa Ana winds, arson
Buildings destroyed| Tens of thousands of structures destroyed cumulatively
Deaths| Hundreds across major fires

While wildfires have been an occasional phenomenoa, all around the world, California wildfires have become much more prominent and economically destructive, in recent decades.[1][2]

## Contents

* 1 Frequency
* 2 Causes
* 3 Top twenty largest California wildfires of the last 100 years
* 4 References

## Frequency[edit | edit source]

Of the twenty largest wildfires in California, since accurate records have been kept, only the Matilija Fire of 1932 took place during the 20th Century.[3]

Nine of California's twenty largest fires occurred since 2017.[4][3]

## Causes[edit | edit source]

Ecologists have pointed out that the frequency of wildfires goes up with the frequency of periods of drought.[1] Wildfires have become more frequent, and more economically destructive in many regions of the world.[5]

Much of the settled portion of California lies between the coast and the first string of mountains, and are regularly swept by hot, dry Katabatic wind \-- downslope winds -- known as the Santa Ana winds. Fires driven by hot dry Santa Ana winds have proven impossible to put out.[4][6] According to Ecology historian Mike Davis: “No one will ever be honest about this, but firefighters have never stopped a wildfire powered by Santa Ana winds. All you can hope for is that the wind will change.”

## Top twenty largest California wildfires of the last 100 years[edit | edit source]

Top twenty largest California wildfires of the last 100 years[3] fire name | cause | date | county | acres | structures | deaths

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August Complex (fire) | Lightning | 2020 08 | Mendocino County, Humboldt County, Trinity County, Tehama County, Glenn County, Lake County, Colusa County | 1,032,648 | 935 | 1
Dixie (fire) | Powerlines | 2021 07 | Butte County, Plumas County, Lassen County, Shasta County, Tehama County | 963,309 | 1,311 | 1
Mendocino complex (fire) | Human Related | 2018 07 | Colusa County, Lake County, Mendocino County, Glenn County | 459,123 | 280 | 1
Park Fire (fire) | Arson | 2024 07 | Butte County, Plumas County, Shasta County, Tehama County | 429,603 | 709 | 0
SCU Lightning Complex (fire) | Lightning | 2020 08 | Stanislaus County, Santa Clara County, Alameda County, Contra Costa County, San Joaquin County | 396,625 | 225 | 0
Creek (fire) | Undetermined | 2020 09 | Fresno County, Madera | 379,895 | 858 | 0
LNU Lightning Complex (fire) | Lightning/Arson | 2020 08 | Napa County, Solano County, Sonoma County, Yolo County, Lake County, Colusa County | 363,220 | 1,491 | 6
North Complex (fire) | Lightning | 2020 08 | Butte County, Plumas County, Yuba County | 318,935 | 2,352 | 15
Thomas (fire) | Powerlines | 2017 12 | Ventura County, Santa Barbara County | 281,893 | 1,060 | 2
Cedar (fire) | Human Related | 2003 10 | San Diego County | 273,246 | 2,820 | 15
Rush (fire) | Lightning | 2012 08 | Lassen County | 271,911 | 0 | 0
Rim (fire) | Human Related | 2013 08 | Tuolumne County | 257,314 | 112 | 0
Zaca (fire) | Human Related | 2007 07 | Santa Barbara County | 240,207 | 1 | 0
Carr (fire) | Human Related | 2018 07 | Shasta County, Trinity County | 229,651 | 1,614 | 8
Monument (fire) | Lightning | 2021 08 | Trinity County | 223,124 | 28 | 0
Caldor (fire) | Under Investigation | 2021 08 | Alpine County, Amador County, El Dorado County | 221,835 | 1,005 | 1
Matilija (fire) | Undetermined | 1932 09 | Ventura County | 220,000 | 0 | 0
River Complex (fire) | Lightning | 2021 07 | Siskiyou County, Trinity County | 199,359 | 122 | 0
Witch (fire) | Powerlines | 2007 10 | San Diego County | 197,990 | 1,650 | 2
Klamath Theater Complex (fire) | Lightning | 2008 06 | Siskiyou County | 192,038 | 0 | 2

## References[edit | edit source]

1. ^ a b Jon E. Keeley; Alexandra D. Syphard (2021). "Large California wildfires: 2020 fires in historical context" (PDF). Fire Ecology. 17 (22). doi:10.1186/s42408-021-00110-7. ISSN 1933-9747. Retrieved 2025-01-10. "California in the year 2020 experienced a record breaking number of large fires. Here, we place this and other recent years in a historical context by examining records of large fire events in the state back to 1860. Since drought is commonly associated with large fire events, we investigated the relationship of large fire events to droughts over this 160 years period."
2. ^ A. L. Westerling; B. P. Bryant; H. K. Preisler; T. P. Holmes; H. G. Hidalgo; T. Das &; S. R. Shrestha (2011-11-24). "Climate change and growth scenarios for California wildfire" (PDF). Climatic Change. 109. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0329-9. Retrieved 2025-01-10. "Human-induced climatic change may, over a relatively short time period (< 100 years), give rise to climates outside anything experienced in California since the establishment of an industrial civilization currently sustaining a state population that has increased approximately 41,000% since 1850."
3. ^ a b c "Top 20 Largest California Wildfires" (PDF). California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection. 2024-10-02. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
4. ^ a b David Wallace-Wells (2024-12-11). "Reckoning With the Scale of California Wildfires". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-01-10. "Years deep into what the fire historian Stephen Pyne calls the 'Pyrocene,' there are any number of ways to quantify the new fire regime. Of the nine largest fires in modern California history, every single one has been since 2017, as have three of the five deadliest. According to some analysis, 2.6 million homes in the state are at moderate or high risk of wildfire, and across the region, the U.S. Forest Service recently projected perhaps a doubling of area burned by midcentury."
5. ^ U.S. Emergency Management in the 21st Century: Chapter 7 California wildfires (PDF). Routledge. 2019. ISBN 9780429424670. Retrieved 2025-01-10. "The social, economic, and ecological impacts of wildfire are an increasing concern in many areas of the world. In North America, the U.S. state of California stands out in terms of recent – 2017 and 2018 – high-loss fire events."
6. ^ David Wallace-Wells (2019-05-12). "Los Angeles Fire Season Is Beginning Again. And It Will Never End". The Intelligencer. Retrieved 2025-01-10. "'No one will ever be honest about this, but firefighters have never stopped a wildfire powered by Santa Ana winds,' the environmental historian Mike Davis told me earlier this spring, as we toured hills ravaged by past fires and — redeveloped and reinhabited in their wake — haunted now by future ones. 'All you can hope for is that the wind will change.'"