Per the Wikipedia page this year more than 3% of the state has burned (and it’s continuing to burn), and thus a good deal more than 3% of the forestable land area has burned. Unless all the forests burned every 20-30 years, this would suggest that this year was significantly more than the historic average. Given that the past decade has averaged about 1 million acres, and the state is about 100 million acres, and not all the state is able to be forested, I’d guess that the last decade’s averages have been at least around the historic average if not more.
I think it’s the other way around: If your forest is burning every 20 years then the fire is relatively minor. There’s much less accumulated fuel so it won’t burn as hot or be as destructive as we see now.
Per the Wikipedia page this year more than 3% of the state has burned (and it’s continuing to burn), and thus a good deal more than 3% of the forestable land area has burned. Unless all the forests burned every 20-30 years, this would suggest that this year was significantly more than the historic average. Given that the past decade has averaged about 1 million acres, and the state is about 100 million acres, and not all the state is able to be forested, I’d guess that the last decade’s averages have been at least around the historic average if not more.
This Wikipedia page says the pre-1800 average was 4.4 million acres. So it looks like burning every 20 years was typical for a California forest.
Huh wild. I guess I have heard about redwood trees surviving forest fires, so that makes some sense, but man those’d be some big fires.
I think it’s the other way around: If your forest is burning every 20 years then the fire is relatively minor. There’s much less accumulated fuel so it won’t burn as hot or be as destructive as we see now.
That makes more sense—there would be more land on fire, but the fires would be weak fires, not the destructive fires that we’re getting now.