CA Wildfires Latest: See A Map Of All Fires Burning

CALIFORNIA — Several wildfires are blazing through parched and drought-stricken areas of California as the state settles into fire season. With more blazes cropping up the Golden State each week, it's important for Californians to keep tabs on where fires are burning to keep safe.

An interactive map created and updated by the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation shows where all active fires are burning. The map shows recently contained fires and regions that have a red flag warning in place.

While the map does not show evacuation routes, the foundation also maintains a spreadsheet with updated evacuation maps in areas that apply.

Historic drought and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires more difficult to quell on the West Coast. Rising temperatures have made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive, scientists have said.

This week across the nation, there were at least 83 large, active fires and complexes of multiple fires that have burned nearly 2,720 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

“Fire weather and the conditions of the fuels across the country continue to challenge wildland fire managers,” an agency statement said.

In California, at least a dozen fires were burning as of Sunday, according to multiple fire agencies.

The three largest and most concerning fires as of Tuesday were the Dixie Fire in Oroville (244,888 acres), Beckworth Complex in the Plumas National Forest (105,670 acres) and the Tamarack Fire, burning in Alpine County (68,696 acres) and the Dixie Fire in Oroville (30,074).

The Dixie Fire is the Golden State's largest wildfire so far this year. Firefighters attempted to corrall the blaze this weekend as was flames chewed through unburned islands of vegetation within a perimeter that firefighters have built, authorities said.

The Dixie Fire has charred 376 square miles in the mountains of Northern California where 42 homes and other buildings have been destroyed and more than 10,000 were still threatened Sunday.

The brush burning inside the fire on Thursday produced a massive “fire cloud," towering columns of smoke and ash that posed placed fire personnel in danger. Residents were assured that it was expected and that crews had not lost control of the fire.

“There's nothing close to our line right now. It's all interior fuels burning,” Mike Wink, an incident commander, said in an online briefing.

Pacific Gas & Electric equipment may have ignited the Dixie Fire, according to a report released by the utility last month.

Last month, a repair man reportedly spotted what he suspected to be a blown fuse while he was responding to an outage in Feather River Canyon off of Highway 70 in Oroville. Due to rough terrain and road work, the worker could not reach the pole for several hours, the utility said. By the time he reached the area, two or three blown fuses may have sparked a fire at the base of a healthy green tree leaning on the pole that held the conductor.

The perfect concoction of worsening drought, rising temperatures and arid fuels suggested that the Golden State is in for another devastating wildfire season, Gov. Gavin Newsom warned in May.

"You're already feeling the temperature shifts," he told reporters. "You already saw those red flag warnings, which are earlier in May than we've seen in many, many years because of the winds that are coming earlier. "

Californians last year were hard-pressed to find refuge between an intensifying coronavirus pandemic and a hellscape of wildfires that hampered air quality all over the state.

A historic 4,257,863 acres of California burned last year in the state's largest fire season in modern history. As fire season was already in full swing last year, more than 12,000 lightning strikes hammered the state, igniting massive fires. The state also experienced its first "gigafire" in 2020: a burn area that exceeded 1 million acres.

This year, the state is falling deeper into drought, which means that firefighters could be up against thousands of miles of dry brush, grass and trees across the state, all ripe for a wildfire season amplified by warming, dry temperatures and high winds.

READ MORE:

• 4 Key Things To Know About CA's 2021 Wildfire Season
• PG&E Says Its Equipment May Have Sparked NorCal Fire