{"id":4374,"date":"2022-11-10T10:47:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T09:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2022-11-14T14:58:50","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T13:58:50","slug":"the-largest-wildfire-in-u-s-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/portada\/the-largest-wildfire-in-u-s-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Largest Wildfire in U.S. History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In August 2020, while the world continued its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,
\nCalifornia had another major problem to deal with: the beginning of the largest wildfire in
\nUnited States history. By November 12 th , when the record-breaking fire, named August
\nComplex, was finally extinguished, over one million acres of forest and land had been
\nburnt to the ground. The disastrous fire incinerated an area roughly the size of the
\nislands of Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza combined. It required the efforts of more than
\n2,900 firefighters and emergency personnel, and cost the state of California and its
\ntaxpayers approximately 320 million EUR.
\nCalifornia is in its third year of a drought which began in 2019. When land doesn\u2019t
\nreceive much moisture in the autumn and winter months, more vegetation will dry out in
\nthe summer, creating the perfect environment for fires to break out. There are often
\nsmall fires burning across California that might not be catastrophic in isolation.
\nHowever, as the fires find more dry vegetation to consume, or run into strong, dry
\nwinds, they will spread and can sometimes merge and intensify. This is what caused the
\nlarge-scale destruction of the August Complex fire which originated as 38 separate fires,
\nmost ignited by lightning strikes.<\/p>\n

The immediate impact of wildfires is everything they destroy in their path: beautiful
\nforests are reduced to ashes, animals are killed and displaced, and homes and property
\nare gone in minutes. Besides the physical damages, another destructive byproduct of
\nwildfires is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
\nIn 2020, the year of the August Complex fire, carbon dioxide produced by wildfires
\nalmost erased 20 years of hard work by Californians to reduce their carbon emissions.
\nWildfires were the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California that
\nyear, according to a study published in the Environmental Pollution Journal in October
\n2022. Within the smoke and fumes, there are also particles from burning cars, buildings,
\nand plastic that contribute to higher air pollution levels dangerous to human health.
\nThis past summer in Spain, wildfires raged in Andalusia, Extremadura, Castille y
\nLeon, Aragon, and Zaragoza, evacuating thousands of people from their homes and
\nscorching thousands of hectares of forests. Forests play a crucial role in slowing down
\nthe effects of climate change. Without them to absorb greenhouse gases, global
\ntemperature will continue to increase, leading to more extreme weather events such as
\ndrought, which will in turn create more wildfires.<\/p>\n

By Jing Gao<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nIn August 2020, while the world continued its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,
\nCalifornia had another major problem to deal with: the beginning of the largest wildfire in
\nUnited States history. By November 12 th , when the record-breaking fire, named August
\nComplex, was finally extinguished, over… Llegeix m\u00e9s\u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eso-4","category-portada"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4387,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions\/4387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agora.xtec.cat\/inscar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}