California marks 3rd anniversary of wildfire that killed 85
PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday marked the third anniversary of California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire by announcing that nearly 100,000 damaged trees have been removed and debris cleaned up from some 11,000 properties.
The Camp Fire that erupted on Nov. 8, 2018, in the Sierra Nevada foothills killed 85 people, destroyed nearly 19,000 homes, businesses and other buildings and virtually razed the town of Paradise.
About 1,000 homes in the area northeast of San Francisco have been rebuilt and reconstruction continues on others, but entire blocks of Paradise remain little more than empty lots.
State and local crews working since early 2019 have removed more than 97,200 fire-damaged trees that threatened public roads in a 240-square-mile (621.6-square-kilometer) area, authorities said.
The Camp Fire remains the deadliest wildfire in recorded state history but it was followed in recent years by a number of devastating blazes, including several this year in the Sierra Nevada and other areas of Northern California that set records for size, destroyed hundreds of homes, and burned hundreds of California’s iconic giant sequoias.
The wildfires, in large part, have been fueled by high temperatures, strong winds and dry weather. Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.
