A flag flies at half-staff amid the rubble of homes burned in the Carr Fire, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)
As of today, there are eighteen wildfires actively burning, and over 14,000 firefighters attempting to contain them. During the period between January and August of 2017, nearly 350 square miles burned. So far this year? Nearly a thousand.
Just in the past five years, this is how much of the state has gone up in flames:
Infographic by Sara Chodosh.
“California is built to burn, and burn explosively,” Stephen Pyne, a fire historian and professor at Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences, told Popular Science. The dry heat, the droughts, the expanses of land that actually rely on regular wildfires to regenerate—it’s a deadly recipe.