Exceptional drought and searing heat exacerbated by climate change helped to fuel the monstrous inferno
By Marisa Iati and Dylan Moriarty The Washington Post
For two months, the Dixie Fire has menaced Northern California — stripping forests, forcing thousands from their homes, and swallowing most of a Gold Rush-era community.
More than 1,300 structures have been leveled. Government agencies have doled out roughly $540 million to battle the blaze. And a federal judge is scrutinizing what role California’s largest utility, the already-embattled Pacific Gas and Electric, may have played in the fire’s origin.
The blaze is the second-largest in California’s history and the biggest to burn in the U.S. this summer, as climate change turbocharged severe storms, floods, and fires. The Dixie Fire has now burned nearly 1 million acres, an area larger than New York City, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles combined.
The fire’s tear through remote, rugged terrain, exceptional drought bringing moisture levels in California’s forests to historic lows, searing heat, as well as a series of unexpected obstacles, combined to fuel a monstrous blaze unlike any firefighters said they had seen before.
This timeline, based on public records and interviews with people affected by the Dixie Fire, shows how a relatively small ring of flames burning 100 miles north of Sacramento morphed into a dangerous harbinger of the devastating wildfire seasons that could be more common as the Earth continues to heat up
July 13: A PG&E employee reports seeing flames and a tree leaning on a power line near the Cresta Dam in Feather River Canyon, a stretch of land known for both its natural beauty and powerful Jarbo winds that in 2018 helped fuel the Camp Fire, California’s deadliest.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, colloquially known as Cal Fire, arrives at the blaze about 25 minutes after being notified and names it the Dixie Fire after one of the nearest roads. There are few, given the remote location. An unauthorized drone flies near the fire, temporarily forcing firefighting tankers and helicopters to pause their efforts.
PG&E spokesman James Noonan later tells The Washington Post that the company last evaluated the area’s trees on Jan. 14 and found none that needed trimming. PG&E also inspected the poles and wires in the area on May 13 and found nothing awry, he says.
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