"If climate change was a somewhat abstract notion a decade ago, today it is all too real for Californians fleeing wildfires and smothered in a blanket of smoke, the worst year of fires on record."

"SAN FRANCISCO — Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face.

The crisis in the nation’s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes. It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.

“You’re toppling dominoes in ways that Americans haven’t imagined,” said Roy Wright, who directed resilience programs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency until 2018 and grew up in Vacaville, Calif., near one of this year’s largest fires. “It’s apocalyptic.”"

Thomas Fuller and Christopher Flavelle report for the New York Times September 11, 2020. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"500,000 Evacuate Wildfires In Oregon As Death Toll Climbs" (ABC News) [3]

Fire Updates Page (Sacramento Bee) [4]

"Climate Change Brings Santa Ana-Like Winds And Explosive Wildfires To Oregon" (Los Angeles Times) [5]

"10 Now Dead In Massive Northern California Wildfire" (AP) [6]

"10 Dead in California as Wildfires Spread on West Coast" (New York Times) [7]

"As Wildfire Smoke Blots Out the Sun in Northern California, Many Ask: ‘Where Are the Birds?’" (InsideClimate News) [8]

"A Young Boy Died Alongside His Dog In The Oregon Wildfires" (NBC News) [9]

"The Western Inferno: 'Extremely Frightening And Ugly'" (E&E News) [10]

"California Wildfires" (San Francisco Chronicle) [11]

"MAP: Washington State Wildfires At A Glance" (Seattle Times) [12]

"Wildfires" (Seattle Times) [13]