California Wildfire Count In The Thousands, 22 Large & Uncontained; 10,000 Firefighters On The Lines
Drought and lightning are making for a combustible combination in California. The state is suffering through its fourth straight summer of drought, and this may be known as the summer of smoke.
A staggering 10,000 national, state and local firefighters are battling fires that are popping up by the hundreds each week, the majority of which are sparked by lightning strikes from daily thunderstorms erupting over mountainous terrain, which drop little rain and cause a lot of trouble. To put the number of firefighters into perspective, that is about the number of troops the U.S. has in Afghanistan. So far, one firefighter has died fighting California's blazes.
As of Tuesday morning, 22 large uncontained fires were still burning across the state, with the biggest and most destructive one being the Rocky Fire located in Lake County, California, about 100 miles northeast of San Francisco. The Rocky fire grew in size to more than 101 square mile, or about 65,000 acres, on Tuesday, taking advantage of abundant vegetation that had not burned in years.
The fire was just 12% contained as of Tuesday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). "Tinder dry conditions from the drought continue to allow wildfires to burn at an explosive rate," CalFire said in an August 4 fire summary. So far this year, California has seen a whopping 5,916 wildfires, which have charred 148,782 acres. CalFire says it has responded to more than 4,200 of these fires, which is about 1,500 more than the average for the year so far.
EDIT
http://mashable.com/2015/08/04/how-the-west-was-burned/
= new reply since forum marked as read
