California wildfire leaves town in ruins

Wildfires burned out of control across California, killing at least nine people in a mountain town and forcing residents to flee the upscale beach community of Malibu in the face of a monster fire storm. The 2018 California wildfires is one of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record in the state of California. During 2018, a total of 7,579 fires had burned an area of 1,645,140 acres (6,657.6 km2), the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a California fire season, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the National Interagency Fire Center, as of November 10. The fires caused over $2.975 billion (2018 USD) in damages, including $1.366 billion in fire suppression costs. Through the end of August 2018, Cal Fire alone spent $432 million on operations. The Mendocino Complex Fire burned more than 459,000 acres (1,860 km2), becoming the largest complex fire in the state's history, with the complex's Ranch Fire surpassing the Thomas Fire and the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889 to become California's single-largest recorded wildfire.

In mid-July to August 2018, a series of large wildfires erupted across California, mostly in the northern part of the state, including the destructive Carr Fire and the Mendocino Complex Fire. On August 4, 2018, a national disaster was declared in Northern California, due to the massive wildfires burning there. In November 2018, foehn winds caused another round of large, destructive fires to erupt across the state. This new batch of wildfires included the Camp Fire, which destroyed more than 6,700 structures and became California's most destructive wildfire on record.

Many different factors led to the 2018 California wildfire season becoming so destructive. A combination of an increased amount of natural fuel and compounding atmospheric conditions linked to global warming led to a series of destructive fires.

Stanford Earth System Science Professor Noah Diffenbaugh stated that atmospheric conditions for California wildfires are expected to worsen in the future because of the effects of climate change in California and that "what we're seeing over the last few years in terms of the wildfire season in California [is] very consistent with the historical trends in terms of increasing temperatures, increasing dryness, and increasing wildfire risk". Other experts agreed, saying that global warming is to blame for these extreme weather conditions. Global warming led to higher temperatures and less rain, creating a drier landscape that gave fires more fuel to burn longer and stronger

 A wildland–urban interface (or WUI) refers to the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. Communities that are within 0.5 miles (0.80 km) of the zone may also be included. These lands and communities adjacent to and surrounded by wildlands are at risk of wildfires. Since the 1990s, over 43% of new homes have been constructed in this area. In some areas, the amount of new homes in those areas is 80%. In the past, when these areas burned, no homes were lost, but now homes are present there and end up being destroyed.

Northern California and the Central Valley saw drastic increases in air pollutants during the height of the July and August fires, while Southern California also experienced an increase in air pollution in August. Air quality in Northern and Central California remained poor until mid-September 2018, when fire activity was drastically diminished.