CalFire has told all residents in the entire state to be “ready to go”: park with their car facing out and have their bags packed. There are at least 367 fires in the state burning over 1,300,000 acres. Many fires were caused by a heat wave combined with a rare summer thunderstorm with over 10,000 lightning strikes.
Tens of thousands have already had to evacuate, and everyone else in the state is warned to be ready. Tens of thousands of homes and buildings have burned. Peoples lives are disrupted, and they have to live in shelters or crowd in with family in the midst of a pandemic.
In addition to the disruption from the fire, numerous areas of the state have an air quality of red or purple: healthy, or very unhealthy, and a few areas were even worse: hazardous. The NICU at Stanford University smells like smoke, despite having hospital air filters and extra air purifiers in the NICU.
Climate experts say the fires and weather are “with great certainty” fueled by climate change. Hotter temperatures create favorable conditions for fires, in addition to the number of heat waves and hot days this summer, and the dry winter with little snow last winter.
It is clear that climate change is killing people, disrupting lives, and creating hazardous air conditions now. It is not in the future, it is now. Please do all you can in your personal life to reduce fossil fuel use and conserve energy, and let your elected officials know that we need concrete plans and real action today.
