Wildfires are raging in both northern and southern California. The Camp Fire, which erupted on 8th November 2018, has become the deadliest and most destructive in California's history. So far, the death toll stands at 79, with around 1300 people unaccounted for and nearly 12,000 structures destroyed. The fire is named after its place of origin, the Camp Creek Road in the Sierra foothills, 280 kilometres (175 miles) north of San Francisco. Driven by winds and fuelled by dry scrub and dead trees, at one point the fire grew so quickly it ate up an area of land the size of a football field every second.

Effects

Due to the speed of the Camp Fire, many local residents were unable to evacuate before it arrived. The fire quickly wiped out virtually all of Paradise, a town of about 26,000 people. Meanwhile, further south, the Woolsey Fire, which started on the same day, is threatening destruction in the Los Angeles area. Pushed towards the coast by the Santa Ana winds, which blow from the northeast, the fire has caused the evacuation of Malibu, home to many Hollywood celebrities. A total of 250,000 Californians have been forced to flee their homes. An army of 8000 firefighters have been battling the flames, but dry winds are making their job much harder.

This year, 2018, has been one of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record in California, with a total of 7579 fires burning an area of 6750 square kilometres (1,667,855 acres) by mid-November. That is the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a fire season.

California is particularly vulnerable to wildfires because it has a dry, hot and windy climate and because it is a heavily forested state. It contains more forest than any other state in the US except Alaska. The past five years in California have been the hottest on record: the state has recently experienced drought conditions lasting nearly six years, its second worst in history.

This lack of rainfall along with diminishing groundwater increases the likelihood of tree death. Dead trees act as explosive fuel when wildfires start. There are millions of dead trees in California. Because of drought, rising temperatures and a growing epidemic of migrating bark beetles that prey on trees, nearly 129 million trees have died since 2010. Only 1.3 million of these trees have been removed: the rest litter the state's forests with tinder.