oh thats right its time for the annual California burn fest
There are several other states with extensive forests that dont have this annual burn problem
what make California unique is it high winds just wondering
All of the Western States have forest fires--most annually. One of my Badger buddy's has a son who is a firejumper. He spends fire season every year based in Colorado and going where needed most in the Rockies. Then he spends the winter and spring in Wisconsin. A few months after I left active duty, my last division was sent to Montana to fight the fires there.
So it's all western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. California is the biggest "western" state by far (excluding Alaska), and among all states, only Alaska and Texas have more forest land. Also, Alaska and Texas are much wetter. California typically gets very little rainfall after April and until at least October. As you can see in the following graphic, California actually has a lower wildfire intensity over the last 30 years than several other western states.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/WildfiresUS.pdfAnd yes, as Bwar pointed out, California has expensive housing that has recently been too close to fires.
Some good statistics here:
https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-wildfiresHowever, half of California forest land is under federal management (this is true in most of the west), and many of the worst fires have been on federal land, so to the extent management is an issue, it's generally federal management that's the question.
Critically, over the last few decades, California has been getting hotter and drier--and this year we had the added fun of lightning during our summer months, something that is very rare here. It's almost as if the climate is changing.
So why do you hear about California? Because it's drier and hotter, but also because it's bigger.
As for the current fires, I think Oregon has the worst of it right now.
