https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/06/california-wildfires-gigafire-first
California’s extraordinary year of wildfires has spawned another new milestone – the first “gigafire”, a blaze spanning 1m acres, in modern history.
On Monday, the August complex fire in northern California expanded beyond 1m acres, elevating it from a mere “megafire” to a new classification, “gigafire”, never used before in a contemporary setting in the state.
At 1.03m acres, the fire is larger than the state of Rhode Island and is raging across seven counties, according to fire agency Cal Fire. An amalgamation of several fires caused when lightning struck dry forests in August, the vast conflagration has been burning for 50 days and is only half-contained.
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Vast, out-of-control fires are increasingly a feature in the US west due to the climate crisis, scientists say, with rising temperatures and prolonged drought causing vegetation and soils to lose moisture.
This parched landscape makes larger fires far more likely. Big wildfires are three times more common across the west than in the 1970s, while the wildfire season is three months longer, according to an analysis by Climate Central.
“We predicted last year that we were living with the chance of such an extreme event under our current climate,” said Jennifer Balch, a fire ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. “Don’t need a crystal ball.”
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tags: extreme weather, severe weather,
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