California wildfires began shattering existing records early in the current season. By the beginning of October, five of the six largest infernos in the state’s history had occurred, burning through more than 4 million acres—already double the damage in any preceding year. California’s most extensive blaze ever, the August Complex Fire, in the Northern Coastal Ranges, had ripped through more than 1 million acres and was still only partially contained. Megafires had also ravaged large swaths of Oregon, Washington, and other western states. Hardly anomalous anymore, the prior three years had seen their own catastrophic wildfires, with the Camp Fire, of 2018, still holding the devastating record statewide for casualties and structures lost, claiming 85 lives and 18,800 buildings, including destruction of the town of Paradise. Cascading, interrelated factors—among them severe drought; strong dry, hot winds; rising average temperatures; and cumulative forest-management practices—are making such conflagrations increasingly extreme and common. “And when fires extend beyond forest areas into inhabited communities,” says Stephen Quarles, an expert on how building materials and structures fare in such events, “a lot more people open their eyes and take notice.”
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