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map of the world california - Google Search

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On November 8, an unimaginably fierce firestorm broke out in Northern California. Fed by dry vegetation, and fanned by northeasterly winds pouring off the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it rapidly descended on the community of Paradise, home to nearly 30,000 people.

Scott McLean, deputy chief of Cal Fire, was among the rescuers, driving through town and frantically trying to get people out. "I just left the hospital, heading up into the mess again," he told WIRED Friday evening. "And out of the smoke comes this little old lady with a little puppy in a wheelchair just scooting down the road. These people didn't have ways to get out. So I picked her up, put her in my truck, and took her back to the hospital."

Virtually nothing is left of Paradise-the tally is almost 19,000 structures destroyed. That makes the Camp Fire by far the most destructive wildfire in California history. It is also by far the state's deadliest, with a death toll of at least 88 and hundreds still missing.

Something's gone awry in California. Fires aren't supposed to destroy entire cities-at least not since San Francisco burned in 1906. Fire codes, better fire-resistant materials, fancier firefighting equipment, and water-spewing aircraft have made it easier to put out flames. Yet in the last year, California has seen seven of its 20 most destructive wildfires ever. The Camp Fire comes just a year after the second most destructive blaze, the Tubbs Fire, struck the city of Santa Rosa in the wine country, leveling 5,500 structures and killing 22.

"How could this happen?" says Stephen Pyne, a fire researcher at Arizona State University. "How did this come back? I mean, this is what we saw in the 19th century."

You can find much of the "how" in the clash of two long-term trends, climate change and population growth. The fires aren't going away, but likely neither are the people. So how do you keep 40 million people and counting from suffering the same fates as the residents of Paradise? And how do you protect $2.6 trillion in property?

"At some point, you don't know what to say," adds Pyne. "It's like mass shootings; we're just sort of numbed by it and we don't seem to be able to respond."

But respond California must.

How We Got Here

Climate change didn't invent wildfires, but according to the data, it's making them worse. This is largely a problem of timing. Normally by this time of the year, California has at least a little bit of rain, which helps rehydrate parched vegetation. With global warming, though, the state is in a severe drying trend in the autumn, as you can see in the graphic below.

The fast, hot winds that blow in from the east this time of year are further desiccating the vegetation, providing ample fuel for what became the Camp Fire, as well as the Woolsey Fire in Southern California. These conflagrations spew embers that fly for miles ahead, creating a multitude of new fires, which firefighters simply can't handle.

The fires are encroaching on sprawling development in California-or, more accurately, the development is encroaching on the fires. "I think of fire as a driverless car," says Pyne. "It's just barreling down the road integrating everything around it. It's a reaction-it takes its character from its context."

Controlling fire, then, means changing its character by tweaking our cities and communities. Fire codes emerged as a reaction to the need to control urban development. Plain wooden shingle roofs are a no-no, for instance. Properties are subject to rules about creating defensible spaces-for example, clearing out dead plants and grass. In 2005, a new California law bumped the required clearance from 30 to 100 feet.

But fire codes only go so far. "One of the weaknesses is that it's really difficult to actually enforce that," says Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of Idaho. "The enforcement falls on the local municipal agencies and fire departments, and oftentimes they simply don't have the resources."

Then there are California's struggles with fire suppression. Not letting trees burn can actually lead to bigger blazes. "There's really good scientific evidence that the tree density in the Sierra Nevada right now is much higher than it was in the pre-European settlement period," according to Kolden. "That's very much a product of 100 years of fire suppression."

Forests packed with more fuel than is natural also creates more conflagrations, across millions of acres of wildlands where crews should be reducing fuel loads. "You don't have a lot of resources to do that, because so much of your funding now goes to simply fighting fires year round," she adds. "That fuel simply remains there, and will remain there until it finally burns."

One solution is prescribed burning, a measure that California hasn't quite embraced. So far this year, the state has done around 55,000 acres of prescribed burning. The southeastern US churned through 5.5 million acres last year-100 times more. And the Southeast as a region is only about five times bigger than California.

"When you look at the southeastern US, it's not a place where we think of as having a lot of wildfires, and they really don't," says Kolden. "That's because the southeastern US does an enormous amount of prescribed fire because their vegetation grows back so quickly."

California's densely packed wilderness has another thing going against it: power lines. Indeed, the prime suspect of the Camp Fire is the local utility, PG&E, which reported an electrical incident at the conflagration's origin just before crews spotted the blaze. The utility may be to blame for last year's Tubbs Fire as well. The question then becomes: Why on Earth are we not burying power lines?

The reason is lots of metamorphic rock-very dense stuff that forms in high pressure and high heat conditions. It's not easy to drill through. "It becomes prohibitively expensive to bury lines and still be able to provide access to those lines," notes Kolden. Utilities can bury them where there's dirt, sure, but it's still going to be very expensive.

Fire Is a People Problem

Yes, California needs to get better about fuel management. At their core, though, wildfires are a people problem. Fires in the state typically have raged either in the wilderness or in cities. Which is why we have wildland firefighters, who are lightly outfitted, as well as urban firefighters, who wear much heavier protections to enter burning buildings.

They're also trained in radically different ways. "Structural city firefighters are really focused on saving people, and they understand a lot of the chemistry and physics of burning buildings," says Kolden. Wildland firefighters, on the other hand, know how fire behaves in forests.

But now that wildfires are moving into populated areas, both groups are being marshaled to fight blazes where they're not accustomed to fighting. The issue now is whether to train firefighters to handle both scenarios, or better assign resources to make sure each group fights where they're most comfortable. Kolden believes that the latter is the safer option.

Then there's the matter of training everyone else living in California-building with better materials, clearing out defensible spaces. Let's take the town of Montecito as a model for how to bolster a community against wildfire.

A few years back, Kolden helped put together a worst-case scenario model that projected a fire driven by 60-mph winds could destroy 400 to 500 homes in Montecito, a superwealthy community on the Southern California coast. Last year, that conflagration came in the form of the Thomas Fire. But Montecito had been readying itself for decades.

"They really focused on defensible space around homes, particularly the homes that were closest up against the wildland areas," she says. "They focused a lot on doing brush removal along their road system." In addition, they made a mountain of information available to firefighters who might come from out of town to help battle a blaze. Basically: This is how we've prepared.

When the Thomas Fire hit, Montecito couldn't rely on aircraft to drop water, but seven homes were lost-not 500. . "To me it was a model," explains Kolden. "This community has figured out what works for them. And the homeowners 100 percent bought into it, and they're all working together to make the community resilient to fire." To be clear, what works for a coastal enclave like Montecito might not work for a forest town like Paradise. Each community is unique, and will need its own unique solution.

Sadly, a month after it broke out, the Thomas Fire took its true toll on Montecito: Heavy rains triggered mudslides on burned-out land, killing 21 people in the area.

Still, Montecito had a solid fire evacuation plan in place, in stark contrast to what happened in Paradise. The Mercury News reports that the evacuation was absolute chaos. Many residents are saying they received no warning at all from authorities, and only made it out because they either spotted the flames or a neighbor came for them.

According to the Los Angeles Times, authorities didn't issue the first evacuation order until the fire had already reached Paradise, 90 minutes after the fire was first spotted at its origin east of town at about 6:30 am. Even then, they reportedly didn't initiate a full-scale evacuation-fearing a repeat of a 2008 fire evacuation, in which roads became clogged. The full-scale evacuation order didn't land until more than an hour after that, at 9:17 am.

By then, the Camp Fire was burning Paradise. Residents fleeing at the last minute crammed the few escape routes. Some abandoned their vehicles to escape on foot. Not everyone could. Paradise is a retirement community; its elderly need time and sometimes special arrangements to clear out of their homes, let alone get out of town.

"It's what I feared," says Thomas Cova, who studies wildfire evacuations at the University of Utah. "It looks like we're repeating history again from the Tubbs Fire last year." During that disaster, authorities opted not to send an alert, fearing they'd cause alarm and hamper emergency efforts. That fire claimed 22 lives.

McLean, of Cal Fire, says that his organization immediately notified the Butte County Sheriff's Department when they spotted the blaze. The sheriff is then in charge of sending out an alert. "We have a warning failure of really epic proportions," says Cova.

A particularly powerful tool is the Amber Alert system, but Paradise residents say they didn't receive any warning through it. (The mayor of Paradise says the town did have an evacuation plan that was practiced in 2016.)

As Montecito proved last year, it doesn't have to be this way. "We know enough to stop this," says Pyne. "We knew enough decades ago."

Fueled by climate change and fierce winds and dry vegetation, fires will keep licking at places like Paradise. The future of cities will depend on how serious they get about fuel management and building codes-and in case that fails, evacuation procedures. To that end, in September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that bolsters wildfire prevention efforts.

California will have to spend billions upon billions to fix this problem, but that's a tiny investment compared with what it stands to lose.

More Great WIRED Stories

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How California Needs to Adapt to Survive Future Fires

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On November 8, an unimaginably fierce firestorm broke out in Northern California. Fed by dry vegetation, and fanned by northeasterly winds pouring off the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it rapidly descended on the community of Paradise, home to nearly 30,000 people.

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It seemed inevitable, but statistics released Wednesday have pushed wildfire benchmarks to horrible levels previously unseen in the province.

More hectares of B.C. forests have burned this year than ever before. Should Metro Vancouver issue one more air quality advisory before the end of the 2018, that too will set a new record.

The updated numbers released Wednesday point to 1,298,454 hectares of forest lost to wildfire. The previous record was set last year, when 1,216,053 hectares of trees burned.

The northwestern part of the province is affected far worse than any other region of B.C., as 838,873 hectares of land have burned. The next closest is the Coastal region, which covers Metro Vancouver, Vancouver Island and much of the south coast, where 162,500 hectares of land have been impacted.

Wednesday's updated numbers coincided with the B.C. government extending its province-wide state of emergency. First issued Aug. 15, the declaration will be extended until Sept. 12 and can be extended or rescinded as necessary.

The number of active fires burning across B.C. sits at 534, while the total number of fires for the current season since April 1 sits at 2,011. Thirty-four evacuation orders affecting approximately 3,200 people are in place, along with 53 evacuation alerts impacting approximately 21,800 people.

There were 3,064 fires in 2009, far and away the highest number over the last decade. The amount of hectares that burned that year, however, was 247,419.

Only three times in the last 18 years has the province issued a state of emergency, which gives government, law enforcement and firefighting personnel the authority to take every measure of action necessary to fight the fires.

Similar declarations came in 2003 and 2017, when the order lasted 10 weeks from July 7 to Sept. 15. The state of emergency was extended four times.

More to come.

@JohnKurucz

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2018 B.C. wildfire season is officially the worst on record

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It seemed inevitable, but statistics released Wednesday have pushed wildfire benchmarks to horrible levels previously unseen in the province. More hectares of B.C. forests have burned this year than ever before. Should Metro Vancouver issue one more air quality advisory before the end of the 2018, that too will set a new record.

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David McNew/Getty Images News/Getty Images

In the past several days, two wildfires in California have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of land, and have caused over 40 known fatalities. The Camp Fire in Northern California has become the deadliest fire in the state's history, and the Woolsey Fire has left thousands of people in the Los Angeles and Ventura areas without homes. And the scariest part is that the fires are still blazing. So you might want to know how to support California firefighters in the best way possible, as they continue to risk their lives battling these fires.

Of course, one of the easiest and most effective ways to support firefighters is to donate money to organizations that help fund and support firefighting resources in the area. From providing top-rate equipment to increasing the overall number of firefighters employed on a full-time basis, there are several organizations that exist exclusively to ensure that firefighters in California have what they need in order to do their jobs.

In the last few days, firefighters have been working shifts of 24 hours or more - and though they could certainly use donations of material objects like clothing and other supplies, donating cash might be the best thing you can do. Darren Dow, the vice president of Cal Fire Local 2881, the union that represents many of California's state firefighters, said to Time, "A lot of times cash donations are better because they can actually utilize those dollars for specific needs rather than taking away some manpower."

Here are some organizations you can donate to on behalf of California firefighters:

GoFundMe For Camp Fire First Responders

The Camp Fire Firefighter Disaster Fund is a GoFundMe account that aims to raise $250,000 for the firefighters in Butte County, California, who have lost their homes or been otherwise affected by the fire.

The purpose of the GoFundMe page is to provide financial assistance to the 30-plus firefighters who will need to partially or fully rebuild their homes in the wake of the fire. The campaign has already raised over $12,000 from 116 people in three days.

Buy A Thrive Causemetics Product On Wednesday, Nov.14

thrivecausemetics on Instagram

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, Thrive Causemetics will donate 100 percent of profits from sales made on that day to a number of organizations providing relief, including the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the American Red Cross. What's more, every time the image above is shared on social media and tagged with #ThriveCausemetics, an additional $5 will be donated to relief funds.

Resist Donating Material Items To Los Angeles-Based Fire Departments

In a statement on Sunday, the Los Angeles Fire Department requested that the public to not bring any more donated items to fire departments in the area. The statement read in part:

Sadly, we're not only emotionally overwhelmed with your profound kindness during the Woolsey Fire, but logistically as well. To the point that the well-meaning donation of physical goods to firefighters is at the brink of causing harm.

[T]he physical donation of donated goods, including personal care items, food and water on the fireline, at command posts or neighborhood fire stations is thankfully NOT needed or desired at this time!

As firefighters continue to work night and day to contain the wildfires in California each time they occur, these foundations will always be readily available to provide aid for those brave workers. To learn more about what firefighters are doing on the front line each day, you can follow the LAFD Twitter account.

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How You Can Show Support For California Firefighters Battling The Deadly Blazes

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In the past several days, two wildfires in California have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of land, and have caused over 40 known fatalities. The Camp Fire in Northern California has become the deadliest fire in the state's history, and the...

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Le " Camp Fire " a détruit près de 14 000 habitations, tué au moins 85 personnes, et restera comme l'incendie le plus meurtrier de l'histoire de la Californie.

Après plus de deux semaines de lutte, les pompiers américains ont réussi à maîtriser " à 100 % " le " Camp Fire ", l'incendie le plus meurtrier de l'histoire de la Californie qui a tué au moins 85 personnes, selon un bilan officiel revu à la baisse. Un précédent bilan faisait état d'au moins 87 morts et les autorités locales ont admis avoir fourni une information erronée.

En revanche, le nombre de personnes portées disparues est désormais de 296, contre 249, selon un précédent bilan. Parmi ces personnes, beaucoup pourraient ne pas avoir conscience d'être recherchées, explique-t-on.

Les pompiers ont annoncé dimanche être venus à bout de ce feu qui a brûlé quelque 620 km ² dans le nord de l'Etat, rasant notamment la petite ville de Paradise. Les pluies des derniers jours sur cette région de la côte ouest des Etats-Unis ont aidé à éteindre le feu mais ont également rendu difficile la recherche de restes humains par les secours.

Le récit de nos correspondants : En Californie, après les incendies, l'introspection

Action en justice

L'incendie, qui s'était déclenché le 8 novembre, a détruit près de 14 000 habitations, 530 commerces et 4 500 autres bâtiments, ont précisé les pompiers californiens (Cal Fire). Des milliers de pompiers ont été mobilisés et des dizaines de milliers de personnes ont été forcées d'évacuer.

Trois personnes ont par ailleurs trouvé la mort dans un autre incendie d'ampleur plus au sud, touchant la célèbre station balnéaire de Malibu. Ce feu, le " Woolsey Fire ", qui a dévasté plus de 390 km ², est lui aussi entièrement maîtrisé.

L'origine des deux incendies n'a pas encore été déterminée mais plusieurs victimes ont lancé une action en justice à San Francisco contre le fournisseur local d'électricité Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E). Selon la plainte, l'incendie aurait été causé par des " étincelles " sur une ligne à haute tension de la société.

Lire aussi Incendies en Californie : " La nature montre des solutions "

Sécheresse chronique

Le président des Etats-Unis, Donald Trump, qui s'était rendu sur place il y a une semaine, avait exprimé sa " tristesse " et constaté l'ampleur des dégâts aux côtés de la maire de Paradise, Jody Jones. Sa première réaction, évoquant la mauvaise gestion, selon lui, des forêts par l'Etat de Californie, avait été critiquée. M. Trump a aussi menacé de couper les fonds fédéraux alloués à la lutte contre les incendies.

Les épaisses fumées provoquées par l'incendie ont été ressenties jusqu'à San Francisco, à plus de 240 kilomètres de la ville de Paradise. La ville avait été contrainte de lancer une alerte à la pollution de l'air, des écoles devant même être temporairement fermées.

La Californie, victime de sécheresse chronique depuis plusieurs années, a connu plusieurs incendies majeurs depuis un an. En septembre, le " Mendocino Complex " avait été maîtrisé après près de deux mois de lutte. Il avait ravagé près de 190 000 hectares, devenant le plus grand feu de forêt dans l'histoire récente de cet Etat.

Le gouverneur de Californie, le démocrate Jerry Brown, a averti qu'il s'attendait à un nombre de plus en plus important d'incendies de ce type, du fait du réchauffement climatique. Mais Donald Trump a, lui, minimisé le rôle du changement climatique. Le président républicain a par le passé qualifié de " canular " le changement climatique et mis ouvertement en doute, au mépris du consensus scientifique, ses causes humaines. En Californie, il a assuré que sa visite sur les lieux dévastés par le feu n'avait pas fait évoluer sa position.

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L'incendie qui a ravagé la Californie est désormais maîtrisé

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Le " Camp Fire " a détruit près de 14 000 habitations, tué au moins 85 personnes, et restera comme l'incendie le plus meurtrier de l'histoire de la Californie.

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I've never met a firefighter who thought of him or herself as a hero. Certainly, I never did. Everything we do, we do because it's part of the job.

It was 1983 and I remember it like it was yesterday.

I had just started as a young firefighter in suburban Sacramento County, California, and was called to a fatal vehicle accident. There, in the middle of a busy intersection, lay the victim, his lower body turned inside out. I was looking at parts of the human body I had only seen in school books.

Right then, I learned the first hard lesson about my new profession: Being a firefighter means being there for people on the worst day of their lives - sometimes on the day their lives end.

Over the course of a career, firefighters experience every extreme, both physical and emotional. The blazing heat of a wildland or structure fire. The satisfaction of saving a life. The heartbreak of a medical call that ends with a child dying in your arms.

As every firefighter will tell you, it's all part of the job.

A life of external, internal dangers

The most visible risks of the job have been on display this past week on the wildfire lines in California. The deadly Camp Fire near Chico burned hot enough to melt aluminum, whipped by winds up to 70 miles an hour. As I traveled the fire scene, I talked to a crew that had been on the job for nearly two full days without a break, fighting fire. The stress and exhaustion were etched into their faces. They just couldn't stop. Dozens of firefighters lost their own homes. Yet they still showed up for work. Part of the job.

For me, the fire service is far more dangerous than when I started out. Year-round wildfires are the " new normal." Building materials burn hotter and more dangerously. Call volumes have exploded, as staffing remains flat or declines.

Our View: How to fight California's wildfires? It's an 'all of the above' response

Opposing View: We need common-sense forest policies if we want to prevent wildfires

More: To live in California is to be stalked by wildfire. How are we doing? Edgy. Tired. Angry.

There are also risks that don't present themselves in the moment, but over time. On more than one occasion, I have told my family that I believe it is not a question of whether I will get job-related cancer, it's a question of when. Another silent killer is post-traumatic stress. Our culture is to bury our feelings about tough calls, but these "exposures" add up too: Last year, more firefighters died by their own hand than in the line of fire.

A life of service, community

Yes, it's a dangerous job. But it is also extremely rewarding. Early in my career, we rescued a young child whose arm had been caught in a dangerous garden machine. It looked like his whole arm was gone, but our actions helped save most of it. Two years later, when a second-grade class came to visit the fire station, there he was with his parents.

Once, my entire crew scrambled to help a couple flying to England for a funeral. They had left their passports in a closed Kinkos and we were their last hope. We got their passports - without breaking in - and the couple made their flight.

The fire service also gives you a second family. We count on each other when we're on calls, and we're living and eating together in the firehouse. It forms an indestructible bond: I know they have my back, and I have theirs.

As deep as our bond with each other is our bond with those we serve. Everybody focuses on the "guts and the glory" of the job, but that's not what it's about. If you're not committed to helping people and the community, it's not the job for you.

More than anything, it is this commitment that sparked a strong reaction from many firefighters to a statement by the president in the early stages of the Camp Fire. As our people were responding to an unfolding human tragedy, the president's first words were a 240-character Twitter broadside that included a threat to withhold federal aid, which could hurt the very communities they were sweating blood to save. As busy as they were, our members let me hear about it, and many weren't happy.

Since then, I'm pleased to say the president has fulfilled his mission, moving quickly on a major disaster declaration that brought critical firefighting assets and emergency aid to the thousands displaced. This action is greatly appreciated, as are the countless expressions of support we've received on this and other events. Trust me, it means a lot.

In my 31 years in the fire service, I've never met a firefighter who thought of himself or herself as a hero. Certainly, I never did. Everything we do, we do because it's part of the job. But at its best, that job is its own reward. Whether we're fighting fire or rescuing a family's trip, every day, firefighters have a chance to be helpers.

It's a privilege to serve. Even knowing all the risks, I can't imagine doing anything else.
Brian K. Rice is president of the California Professional Firefighters, representing 30,000 firefighters and paramedics. Brian worked for 31 years as a firefighter with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/11/16/california-wildfires-firefighters-trump-union-column/2012622002/

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Despite the risks, I can't imagine being anything but a California firefighter

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I've never met a firefighter who thought of him or herself as a hero. Certainly, I never did. Everything we do, we do because it's part of the job. It was 1983 and I remember it like it was yesterday.

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California wildfires: 2018 among worst fire seasons on record | The Sacramento Bee

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How many wildfires have there been and how much and many acres have burned in California in 2018? This wildfire season is the worst on record for number of acres. The Camp Fire is the deadliest in CA history.

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La cause des incendies géants en Californie dévoilée

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Une petite étincelle produite par une crevaison a allumé le vaste feu de forêts mortel baptisé "Carr Fire" en Californie. Actuellement, près de 17 feux ravagent cet État américain.

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carr fire's devastation started with a flat tire

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A flat tire started the deadly Carr Fire and days of devastation in California

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It happens countless times on roads across America: a vehicle gets a flat tire, usually just a temporary inconvenience. But when one tire failed last month on a trailer near Redding, California, the result proved to be catastrophic for an entire region.

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La Californie, en proie à la sécheresse, est ravagée par les incendies - notre-planete.info

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Encore un nouvel été catastrophique pour la Californie. Alors que c'est la quatrième année consécutive que la sécheresse fait rage dans cet état, les conséquences sont désastreuses. Les départs de feux ne cessent de s'accroître

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In searching for the cause of the wildfire, investigators will look at things that were touched by the flames but not destroyed. Credit Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

PARADISE, Calif. - One huge fire was caused by a spark set off by a man with a hammer, working on a fence post in a field of dry vegetation. Another began at a backyard barbecue. A 2007 fire on Santa Catalina Island was ignited by workers cutting metal wires with a torch.

As investigators try to determine what started the most devastating wildfire in California history, which killed at least 56 people, the beginning premise is that human beings - through their mistakes, or their toys, tools and technologies - were probably behind it.

But looking into the cause of a fire, which can take months of painstaking work, also means rolling back the clock to a moment and to a spot that, like most of the town of Paradise, has been reduced to ash. What was there at the moment of the fire's birth was probably destroyed by the fire itself, or at least profoundly altered.

Even a tiny pebble can be an important clue. On which side was it blackened by heat? What's the condition of the soil below the fire at the place it started? An electrical charge from a high-voltage power line, for example, can solidify sand with a telltale signature. Then investigators look at things that were touched by the flames but not destroyed.

"If you're looking at some trees, you look at the angle of char, the way that the needles froze in the heat; then you can say, 'This fire spread from right to left,'" said James Engel, the deputy chief of law enforcement and fire prevention at the northern division of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire.

The so-called Camp Fire, which, in addition to its death toll, destroyed more than 10,000 homes and businesses, began on a day of low humidity, strong winds and lingering drought, with soils and plants in some areas parched by more than 200 days with no significant precipitation. That was the environment in which the fire began - itself a crucial piece of the puzzle.

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As investigators continue to search the devastation for remains, another group will begin sifting the ashes looking for a cause of the wildfire. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

An electrical cause is certainly on the table, Mr. Engel said, from a power line that could have fallen in the wind, or some other malfunctioning electrical equipment.
[A 'perfectly imperfect' life: The victims of the California wildfires.]
Other causes will also be considered, from a tossed cigarette to a power-mower blade sparking a rock to a hot vehicle tailpipe. Many investors in Pacific Gas and Electric, one of California's largest utility companies, have already placed their bets and reduced their risk, with the company's share price plummeting in a wave of selling in fear that the company will be held liable.

The utility was responsible for several of last year's wildfires that burned through Northern California's wine country. In fact, Cal Fire has determined that of the 21 major fires last fall in Northern California, at least 17 were caused by power lines, poles and other equipment owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Earlier this year, the utility said that it would begin pre-emptively turning off the power to some customers to avoid causing wildfires under certain conditions.

Cal Fire, once it determines a cause, can seek compensation for firefighting costs - which in the case of the Camp Fire will be staggering, whoever foots the bill. More than 5,600 firefighters were still on the lines on Wednesday, with 23 helicopters in the air and 630 fire engines were on the ground. The fire has burned 138,000 acres and was 35 percent contained.

Whatever triggered the blaze - which was first reported early Thursday, just east of Paradise, a town of about 27,000 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills - strong winds roaring through the dry terrain were the reason it spread so quickly and caused so much devastation.

A changing climate is potentially part of the Camp Fire's story, in deepening patterns of drought in California. Some researchers said that logging in the burned area after a fire in 2008, which was intended to clear out fuels and make this part of Northern California safer, may have had the opposite result. The logging may have left fast-burning weeds and young trees in the fire's path.

"When it got to the logged area, it spread very rapidly and people just didn't have much time to evacuate in Paradise, so this whole notion that logging - so-called hazardous fuels reduction - was going to save the town is a dangerous falsehood," said Chad Hanson, a fire ecologist at the John Muir Project, an environmental group that has been critical of land-management policies and logging practices on public lands. The speed at which the fire spread has raised concerns about the nearly 100 people who are still missing.

Investigators looking into the cause of the wildfire will try to roll back the clock to a moment and to a spot that, like most of the town of Paradise, has been reduced to ash. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

For the team of 10 investigators from Cal Fire that has begun its work, old-fashioned shoe-leather will be the start. They plan to interview as many witnesses as possible, and Mr. Engel said he starts every day looking in the news media for the names of displaced fire survivors.

In the age of the cellphone, another important investigative tool will be video. Many people turned on their phone cameras as they were escaping or as the fire was approaching their homes, and posted the video to social media. Investigators will be searching for the video, hoping to create a kind of composite from multiple sources, showing how the fire spread and which way smoke was moving at any given moment.

The investigation of the Camp Fire will not end with the state's inquiry. Private investigators, especially from insurance companies, will eventually arrive, though Cal Fire's work comes first. If criminal charges become part of the picture, prosecutors from Butte County or other jurisdictions also would be brought in.

Mr. Engel, the state fire official, said that investigators do not typically focus on the broader issues of land management or climate science: how and when trees were cut for timber, for example, or patterns of drought.

Those things could be important in a fire's total impact, he said, and on the potential for more fires. But determining the cause of a fire is like taking a short story that is complete except for its first sentence, and then writing a beginning that explains how and what happened.

That sentence often starts with something about the weather. "Temperature, wind and humidity; those are the things that affect ignitions," Mr. Engel said. After that, human variables are almost always in play.

Researchers have shown, for example, that when people take their guns out into the woods for target practice, some kinds of ammunition are more likely to start a fire than others.

"As a fire flows, it hits objects that it consumes, or may not consume, and it leaves indicators on those objects," Mr. Engel said. "That's where we start reading."

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The California Wildfires: How Experts Track a Blaze to Its Origin

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PARADISE, Calif. - One huge fire was caused by a spark set off by a man with a hammer, working on a fence post in a field of dry vegetation. Another began at a backyard barbecue. A 2007 fire on Santa Catalina Island was ignited by workers cutting metal wires with a torch.

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California has been engulfed by fire since October 8, with thousands forced to evacuate from the heart of the state's famous wine country.

More than 20,000 people have abandoned their homes so far and 400 have been reported missing in Sonoma County alone.

Authorities have been told to warn anyone who refuses the leave their home: "You are on your own."

With dry conditions and strong gusts on the forecast, Firefighters face another torrid day battling the destructive infernos.

Winds of up to 60 mph (100 kph) and humidity of just 10 per cent will create "critical fire weather conditions" and "contribute to extreme fire behaviour" on Friday afternoon and into Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

About 8,000 firefighters are working heroically to contain the blaze but they are no closer to uncovering what started the fires.

How did the California fires start?

It is still too soon to say for sure what caused the California fires, though some experts believe they could have been sparked by a malfunctioning power line or transformer.

A spokesperson for Pacific Gas and Electric told the LA Times that it not yet known whether the company's lines caused the wildfires.

He stressed that the current priority is to restore power to the 40,000 customers without electricity in the Santa Rosa area.

Other possible culprits include campfires and faulty machinery, according to Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director at the California Department of Forestry Fire and Protection.

"We have investigators spread out across all the fires," Mr Berlant said, adding that it could be several days before they are able piece together what happened.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in California earlier this week and President Donald Trump has since offered federal aid to supplement recovery efforts.

In a statement yesterday, Mr Brown assured that emergency services are working hard to get resources to the worst affected areas.

He said: "Yesterday I was at the State Operations Center and they are working to get fire trucks, aeroplanes and personnel out to all the areas that they can.

"But we are not in any way finished. Some places are beginning to be contained, but the fires are burning, the winds can come up - they are not as calm as we'd like them to be."

The deadliest wildfire event in California's history has devoured about 3,500 homes and businesses.

Where are the California fires?

Google and CalFire, maintains this interactive map showing all wildfires across California.

Clicking on each fire pulls information on the state of the individual blaze.

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California fires cause: What started the California wildfires?

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California has been engulfed by fire since October 8, with thousands forced to evacuate from the heart of the state's famous wine country. More than 20,000 people have abandoned their homes so far and 400 have been reported missing in Sonoma County alone.