86 large wildfires this year where 300 or more acres were burned
532% compared to five-year avg of large wildfires year-to-date
698,074 acres burned this year from local, state and federal wildfires
476% compared to five-year avg of acres burned year-to-date
calmatters.org/california-wildfire-map-tracker/
California wildfire is consuming 5,000 acres/hour.
A raging inferno whipped by winds, California’s Park Fire continued its relentless march through bone-dry wilderness north of Chico, burning 350,012 acres as of Saturday night, Cal Fire said. The blaze is the seventh-largest wildfire in California’s history. The fire has forced thousands of people to leave their homes in Butte, Tehama, Lassen and Shasta counties, and has destroyed 130 structures, with this number likely to increase.
“It’s been growing 5,000 acres an hour since the inception or the ignition of this incident started,” Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said at a Saturday morning briefing. “OK, just to put that into perspective, we’re looking at almost 8 square miles an hour this thing is taking out. … It’s going to be another dynamic day.”
Temperatures were lower and winds lighter on Saturday compared to recent days, allowing firefighters to finally achieve some containment. The fire went from zero containment Saturday morning to 10% containment by the evening. Despite this good news, the fire is still expected to be a long-term event. “This fire is going to burn for another couple weeks for sure,” Cal Fire spokesperson Robert Foxworthy told SFGATE on Saturday afternoon. “Even if the fire stopped tomorrow, there would still be weeks of work to do. This is a long-duration fire.”
www.fire.ca.gov/our-impact/statistics
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-wildfires-consumes-more-than-half-a-million-acres/ar-BB1qInPo
h/t Rick Here