In 2016, a total of 7,349 fires had burned an area in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, according to the

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, colloquially known as CAL FIRE, is the fire department of the California Natural Resources Agency in the U.S. state of California. It is responsible for fire protection in various area ...

Climatologist Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospheric ...

s had predicted an extreme version of

El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

, known as a ''Super El Niño'', to occur during the winter of 2015–16. Although the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

’s warming water had been expected to bring strong storms to parts of the southwestern United States, actual precipitation totals generally underperformed those expectations. Early in 2016, The

National Interagency Fire Center The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, is an American physical facility which is the home to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) and the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group (NMAC or MAC). The center w ...

predicted that conditions from May through at least August would put much of the

western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement i ...

in above-normal

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

danger.

Events

In June, the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

estimated that over 26 million trees had died across in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This brought the number of dead trees to over 66 million during the past four years of drought. On August 15, the

showed the state leading the nation in the quantity, size and intensity of wildfires. A day later, on August 16,

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of th ...

announced that nearly 85,000 people were evacuated because of the Blue Cut Fire near

Cajon Pass Cajon Pass (; Spanish: ''Puerto del Cajón'' or ''Paso del Cajón'') is a mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains to the east and the San Gabriel Mountains to the west in Southern California. Created by the movements of the San Andr ...

. Authorities arrested a 40-year-old man in connection to the Clayton Fire, and charged him with 17 counts of

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

Fires

Below is a list of all fires that exceeded during the 2016 California wildfire season, as well as the fires that caused significant damage. The information is taken from

CAL FIRE The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, colloquially known as CAL FIRE, is the fire department of the California Natural Resources Agency in the U.S. state of California. It is responsible for fire protection in various are ...

's list of large fires, and other sources where indicated.

References

External links

California current incident information from CAL FIRE

California wildfires on the US Forestry Incident Information System
(

InciWeb InciWeb is an interagency all-risk incident web information management system provided by the United States Forest Service released in 2004. It was originally developed for wildland fire emergencies, but can be also used for other emergency inci ...

)
2016 California Fire Map
(Calfire/Google Maps) {{2016 wildfires California, 2016 Wildfires in California by year

Events

Fires

See also

References

External links