The next day, the fire grew to 500 acres. According to a report by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., on July 13, 2021, a worker in the Feather River Canyon area found two blown fuses and a large tree leaning against a power line wire. Like many other recent environmental disasters, the Dixie Fire started with human error.
Additionally, low-intensity firefighting activities had the most significant impact on the elimination of the fire’s worst effects. According to the research team, the fire’s history determined much of its severity. The firefighting efforts cost $ 637 million and lasted nearly two months, making Dixie the most extensive and expensive fire in California history. Having analyzed Dixie’s growth trajectory, researchers came to the conclusion that the largest growth spikes occurred on days with high temperatures, low humidity, and high winds. The Dixie Fire covered almost 1 million acres in California. For example, over the past two years, they scorched an area larger than the total area of New Jersey and Vermont. In recent years, wildfires have become more intense. Table source: Insurance Information Institute Additionally, climate change contributed to the fact that the land and plants become even drier than usual and thus more favorable for a fire to spread. Combined with the dry weather, this vegetation acts as fuel for a fire. Plants growing in this region consist of dry grass, shrubs, and pine needles, which are very easy to ignite. Because of its Mediterranean climate, the state is dry most of the year, with rains falling only in winter, which is followed by dry and hot summers. The Dixie Fire affected five counties in the state - Butte, Lassen, Plumas, Shasta, and Tehama.Īccording to statistics, California is the most wildfire-prone state in the U.S., mostly due to natural factors. The fire’s unofficial name was “Monster” – exactly with this word many newspapers and online resources referred to this natural disaster. The blaze got its name after Dixie Road, near which the fire began in Butte County.
Known under the name of “Dixie”, it became the second-largest wildfire in the state’s history. Pictured: The Dixie Fire, which began in the Feather River Canyon and burned 963k acres in July of 2021.In the middle of July 2021, a large forest fire broke out in northern California. In October, the state of California, especially in the Northern regions where most of the fires were located, received its first rain in over 200 days reducing the wildfire risk for much of the state. On August 18, 2021, the state of California was facing "unprecedented fire conditions" as multiple fires including the Dixie Fire, McFarland Fire, Caldor Fire, and others raged on. In July, more than three times as many acres had burned compared to the previous year through that date, with drought, extreme heat, and reduced snowpack contributing to the severity of the fires. In January 2021 alone, 297 fires burned 1,171 acres on nonfederal land, which is almost triple the number of fires and more than 20 times the acreage of the five-year average for January. The 2021 wildfire season in California experienced an unusually early start amid an ongoing drought and historically low rainfall and reservoir levels.
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