International Association of Wildland Fire

 CALIFORNIA 2020: Worst Fire Season Ever, Again. Now What? An effort to dissect the California Fire Quilt

BY JOAQUIN RAMIREZ, Wildland Fire Technologist, principal at Technosylva (San Diego, CA), and Professor at the University of Leon (Spain). IAWF Board of Director since 2020.

We will remember 2020 for the terrible impact of COVID-19 worldwide. Within the wildland fire community, we will not forget that on top of the complexity of dealing with a pandemic, it was the year where more than 4 million acres burned, including some of the more pristine forests of California, doubling the area of the worst fire year in modern history (Table 1). This happened just after the tragic 2018 fire season when Paradise was devastated by the Camp Fire, and 2017 when Santa Rosa and the Napa Valley suffered the consequence of living in a fire-prone landscape.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Updated Statewide PIO contact list and training information

February 2024 Edition of the Risk Reduction Review

48th Annual Arizona State Fire School September 8-12, 2021