The Wildfires Continue

In recent weeks California has had dangerously dry weather conditions. The lack of humidity and the ultra high wind speeds have been lighting cities, towns and forests in California on fire all over the state. Dry conditions result in increased fire risks and causes fires to burn more rapidly. Which ultimately causes larger fires and overall more damage.

The fire risks have been described as “extremely critical” according to professionals at the Washington Post. Northern California has been experiencing wind speeds up to 50-80 miles per hour, with the weather being similar to that of a desert.

Wind speeds have been as high as 90 miles per hour in Los Angeles. Due to these unusually high winds, fires have been spreading to urban areas more than they have in the past. The increased winds have also been causing more smoke to spread to neighboring cities and areas resulting in poor air quality. Furthermore, residential and urban areas are catching fire, and more people are having to evacuate and are losing their homes.

The Silverado fire has caused more than 90,000 people to evacuate from Irvine according to The New York Times, and two firefighters have been injured. This 500 acre fire could be seen from neighboring cities and nearby areas. Such as Laguna Niguel.

Although most of these wildfires are purely caused by nature, it is especially important to keep the fire risk of individual homes as low as possible because of how rapidly the fires spread. With the wind speeds being so high, if one home catches on fire it is very likely it will spread to others around it quickly.

California has always been a dry and fire prone state but due to rising temperatures, this has worsened within the past few years. This year has surpassed the 2018 record for the acres burned with 2 million acres burned in 2020 according to The New York Times. Hopefully as temperatures cool going into winter, the fires will settle down and people will be able to return and rebuild.