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Environmental News
Ayana Archie, NPR

California’s wildfires are burning far more land so far this year than in 2023

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Firefighters work against the advancing Lake Fire in Los Olivos, Calif., Saturday, July 6, 2024.
Firefighters work against the advancing Lake Fire in Los Olivos, Calif., on Saturday, July 6, 2024.
Eric Thayer | AP

So far in this year’s California’s wildfire season, about 20 times more acres of land have burned than around this time last year.

Since the beginning of the year, there were more than 3,500 wildfires across the state through early July, causing about 207,000 acres of land to burn. Around this time last year, about 10,000 acres had burned. The five-year average of acres burned through mid-July is about 39,000, Cal Fire said last week.

“We are not just in a fire season, but we are in a fire year,” Joe Tyler, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said at a news conference earlier in July.

Tyler said Cal Fire and its partners are “fully staffed” with fire trucks, bulldozers, and newly introduced Blackhawk helicopters that can fly at night.

As part of its 2024 budget, California will allocate $2.6 billion through 2028 to fighting wildfires and improving forest health, in addition to $200 million annually to help prevent fires. To help with staffing, workweeks will be shortened for state firefighters and the state has set a goal to hire about 2,400 more firefighters in the next five years.

More than 95 percent of wildfires are caused by humans, Tyler said. He warned California residents to be cautious when engaging in activities that can cause sparks, such as mowing lawns, towing vehicles, welding and shooting guns.

In hot, dry and windy conditions, as has been the case in California, sparks can ignite into flames. Gov. Gavin Newsom additionally cited record high temperatures and lightning strikes as the source of some of the fires.

“Climate change is real … If you don’t believe in science, you have to believe your own eyes, the lived experience all of us have out here in the western United States, for that matter, all around the globe,” he said.

Copyright 2024, NPR