Wildfires Rage Across California: What is to Blame?
Image Courtesy of New York Post
By: Franchetta Groves
The state of California is known to be plagued by wildfires and has met this challenge repeatedly in the past. However, this time a gender reveal party is receiving the blame. In El Dorado, the fire was started when a California family used a smoke generating pyrotechnics device to reveal the sex of their child.
The dry conditions and fire weather created the perfect storm for the blaze to start. The fire has grown to burn over 10,000 acres and has forced the evacuation of 3,000 residents. The El Dorado fire, which began on Saturday, September 5, is not the only fire burning in California. Almost 16,500 firefighters from across the state are battling over 28 fires currently. Since the beginning of 2020, there have been fires burning over 3.2 million acres, breaking the current record from 2018.
These fires have led to 24 fatalities and over 4,200 structures being destroyed. Due to the combination of gusty winds, low humidity, and dry conditions, the fires are spreading quite quickly. Making matters more complicated is the fact that these fires are forcing people to evacuate amidst coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
The El Dorado fire has caused criticism towards gender reveal parties and individuals’ negligence over preventing forest fires. Some publications, however, argue that preventing forest fires is much larger than just this alone.
“California is not on fire because of a single gender-reveal party, of course,” said The Conversations. “The El Dorado fire consumed just 10,000 of the 2.3 million acres presently alight. The west coast is ablaze because of a range of climatic changes. California has been baking in record temperatures for weeks, hitting a record 49℃ (120.2°F) in early September.”
There has been a multitude of causes that have sparked these fires. One cause has been lightning, which strikes trees and starts fires. The climate of California has always made forest fires a challenge to contend with. However, some scientists find a correlation between climate change and the increase in forest fires.
“This climate-change connection is straightforward: warmer temperatures dry out fuels,” said Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. ”In areas with abundant and very dry fuels, all you need is a spark.”
These forest fires also create air quality which can be extremely harmful to residents causing the California government to warn residents to be ready to leave at any moment.
Scientists continue to study the correlation between climate change and the rise of these fires as they search for solutions to these problems. One thing is to be sure though: If climate change is a contributing factor to these forest fires, it will only create more problems in the future as it dries out the West’s already dry climate.
