As a Californian, wildfires and drought situation in this state has always hit close to home. The harsh winds and dryland make wildfires more and more of a possibility, which it was this past week. Living now in Southern California rather than Northern California where I’m from originally, the recent wildfires have made me and my family from both areas extremely tense.
With the wildfires in both Norcal and Socal, it makes me feel on edge that at some point, a wildfire could affect me and/or my family. During the recent wildfires in Anaheim about forty-five minutes from where I live, so many of my coworkers family members were going through a mandatory evacuation. The Canyon 2 fire scorched 7,500 acres to burn and left 21 homes damaged and 13 were destroyed in East Anaheim. Luckily, people who were evacuated were able to go back to their homes yesterday, but that still left people homeless or with the burden of house repair costs.
In Norcal, Sonoma City and Napa Valley were both hit with severe wildfires. There was a reported number of 21 deaths due to the fire across four counties. In Sonoma county, 600 people have been reported missing and close to half, about 315 people, have been found. The hope now is that once telecommunications have been repaired, the 285 still missing will be found. 3500 homes and businesses were destroyed. At this point, this wildfire has been ranked as the third deadliest and most destructive in state history.
These wildfires are only about to get worse. With climate change/global warming causing the droughts and dry weather overall, we’ve finally gotten to a point where a state of emergency has been called for in the Sonoma and Napa Valley region. No one knows when or where the next wildfire will be, but the hope is that our state will be prepared. Although California was hit pretty hard, it is not the only place that suffers these types of natural disasters. Even places like Canada that got hit over the summer goes through things like this. The British Columbia wildfire got so bad that the ash traveled to Washington and making it rain ash. Wildfires are serious and can happen anywhere. At this point, I believe it takes some political action that would help the environment and encourage more proactive attitudes within government to make it so we lose less people, less homes, and less hope that things like this will get better.