California’s August Complex fire has been described as the first “gigafire” as the area burned exceeded 1 million acres. As of the end of the year, nearly 10,000 fires had burned over 4.2 million acres, more than 4% of the state’s roughly 100 million acres of land, making 2020 the largest wildfire season recorded in California’s modern history. The 2020 California wildfire season was characterized by a record-setting year of wildfires that burned across the state of California as measured during the modern era of wildfire management and record keeping. In October, the state of California, especially in the Northern regions where most of the fires were located, received its first rain in over 200 days reducing the wildfire risk for much of the state. On August 18, 2021, the state of California was facing “unprecedented fire conditions” as multiple fires including the Dixie Fire, McFarland Fire, Caldor Fire, and others raged on. In July, more than three times as many acres had burned compared to the previous year through that date, with drought, extreme heat, and reduced snowpack contributing to the severity of the fires. In January 2021 alone, 297 fires burned 1,171 acres on nonfederal land, which is almost triple the number of fires and more than 20 times the acreage of the five-year average for January. The 2021 wildfire season in California experienced an unusually early start amid an ongoing drought and historically low rainfall and reservoir levels.
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