There are, right now, more than a dozen major fires burning across California. And this still counts as a light year. dwallacewells writes
A firefighter watches over a fire along a hillside on October 26. Photo: Philip Pacheco/AFP via Getty Images This, keep in mind, is what counts as a good year now, a light year, wildfires posing just a fraction of the threat they represented to terrified Californians just last year or the year before.
If the phrase “Getty Fire” rings a bell for you, it should — the same area burned in 2017, in a fire which broke out in almost the same spot, eventually threatening Rupert Murdoch’s California home among other Bel Air estates. Fires used to sweep through even the most vulnerable communities just once a generation; they are now striking, in some places, every other year, intensifying fears, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “that parts of California could become almost dangerous to inhabit.
But thanks to a protracted quiet period throughout the summer and early fall, the total damage from this year’s wildfires — barring a catastrophic late fall — will be barely a tenth of 2018’s total, and less than a quarter of 2017’s. And yet, as a measure of just how totally unprepared even the country’s wealthy, green liberal paradise is to deal with the brutality of even today’s amount of climate change, California is entirely overwhelmed this year, too.
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