Barely two months after fires charred Northern California’s wine country, the state is once again staring down a spate of wildfires, this time in Southern California. These fires are fueled by some of the strongest Santa Ana winds in recent memory.
The Thomas Fire, the largest of the blazes, is burning through Ventura County toward Los Angeles. The blaze is more than four times the size of the Tubbs Fire (36,807 acres), which was the most destructive of the fires in Napa and Sonoma counties in October 2017.
The October firestorm destroyed 5,700 homes and other businesses in Northern California and killed 42 people, while, in December, the largest wildfire on record in California.
The Thomas fire, killed two people and destroyed homes in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. It also stripped hillsides of vegetation, leading to a mudflow that killed at least 21 people in the coastal community of Montecito in January, 2018.
Yearly event?