CA Blazes Grow Stronger in 2020

Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash

Two fires at 99% containment in Orange County have burned approximately 26,430 acres in 11 days.

The two blazes began the morning of October 26 within hours of one another. It is unknown how the two fires began, but both were made worse because of Santa Ana winds in the region. The area was at an increased fire risk due to the dry winds in addition to building La Niña climate patterns.

About 90,000 residents in the Irvine and Yorba Linda areas were asked to evacuate because of the blaze. While weather conditions unpredictably improved two days after the fires began, the negative effects had already started.

Lake Forest resident Skyler Gerrits, 21, stated that she received an immediate evacuation notice at 9:05 because of her close proximity to the Silverado Canyon fire. “It’s crazy, [the fire] came out of nowhere.”

According to Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessey in a press release, 700 people were sent to help battle the fires, two of which suffered from second-and-third-degree burns.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) explained on their official website that in recent years, California’s fire season has been “starting earlier and ending later each year.”

CAL FIRE said in a press release that the 2020 fire season has been historic in terms of how many blazes affected the state. According to the organization’s 2020 Fire Summary, “since the beginning of the year, wildfires have burned almost 4 million acres in California,” a 177% increase from the previous year’s fire season.

While California is reaching record numbers of destruction, President Donald Trump continues to blame the state for poor forest management.

In an August press release concerning California’s wildfires, President Trump stated that “they’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests - there are many, many years of broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

Trump continued, saying “maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us.” The president’s response to the fires did not come as a shock to Californians, as he has offered little help during the state’s fire seasons during his presidency.

President Trump said in an August 20 interview, “I’ve been telling them this now for three years, but they don’t want to listen. ‘The environment, the environment’, but they have massive fires again.”

When California requested a disaster declaration due to increased wildfires, President Trump had initially ruled against it. However, on October 16 he reversed his decision. The Federal Emergency Management Agency ended up approving four fire management assistance grants in five California counties.

While the Silverado and Blue Ridge fires are almost completely contained, California’s fire season is far from being over. A brush fire in San Dimas, California, began yesterday around 4 a.m. Currently, the fire has burned around 70 acres and is at 20% containment.

CAL FIRE’s website shares that they continue to be “staffed and prepared for wildfires, and [are] asking all Californians to do the same.”