America’s on fire, how did we get here?

For the past month, the state of California has been battling wildfires, with widespread damage in the state and as many as 34 people dead in three places: California, Oregon and Washington.

Despite President Trump’s vehement denial of the reality of climate change, it would seem that it is, in fact, very real. Various studies have found that the excessive heating up of the Earth is what sets the stage for wildfires like these.

With world temperatures skyrocketing and the global South already facing extreme heat, extreme natural calamities are just another in a chain of events kicked off by resource mismanagement and worsening environmental policy.

For the first time, in the state of Oregon, there were five megafires - ones that cover 405 square kilometres - ablaze simultaneously, making for the worst air quality in the world.

The fires weren’t just a freak occurrence, they happened as a culmination of events; this time of the year, being fire season, was exacerbated by a cluster of lighting strikes, which was then compounded by a high-pressure zone in the Southwest, which pushed hot air towards the fires, making matter much much worse.

America’s disaster has not yet ended, however, with fires cropping up everywhere across California and Oregon. About 13,700 square kilometres have burned this year in California; in Oregon, about 4,000 square kilometres.