Wildfires have become increasingly prevalent in the American consciousness this past summer. With record breaking temperatures, including the globe’s hottest month ever recorded, it is no wonder that, especially in drier places, fires would run rampant; and run rampant they have.
All of the usual places, of course, were hit: there were the wildfires that occur every summer in places like Arizona, California, Florida, and New Mexico. What was more surprising to the American public, though, were the raging fires burning their way through Canada. These fires were thought to have started as early as April before becoming severe enough that their government issued their first, but certainly not last, statement on May 6.
These fires became increasingly prevalent until, during mid to late June, smoke started blowing over into America’s East Coast. According to the New York Times, the smoke traveled as far west as Minnesota, and it heavily affected many cities close to the border, such as New York. During this time period people living all across the coast raised concerns about air quality, in particular in places like New York, where the familiar skyline more closely resembled the cover photo of a post-apocalyptic book where global warming won.
According to ABC.com, as of August 22nd, there are still more than 1,000 fires burning in Canada, with more than 650 of them being classified as “out of control” by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). Currently these fires have burned an estimated 37 million plus acres, but, despite the severity of the fires, only six people’s deaths have been attributed to the fires, with four of those deaths being firefighters. The firefighters include Ryan Gould, Devyn Gale, Adam Yeadon, and a 25-year-old whose name has not been released. The other casualties included Carter Vigh, a nine-year-old who suffered an asthma attack, and an unnamed hospital patient who died during an evacuation of Yellowknife Hospital due to the fires.
More recently, though, there have also been a multitude of severe fires in Hawaii as well, specifically in Maui, the second largest island in Hawaii. These wildfires started in early August, and are predominantly thought to be driven by the dry, strong winds of Hurricane Dora to the south and a high pressure area to the north. By August 9th, Hawaii’s government issued a statewide emergency, and on the 10th President Biden issued a federal major disaster declaration.
The wildfires have been devastating to the island; the largest fire by far, a bush fire started in West Maui, all but wiped the home to about 12,000, Lāhainā, “off the map,” leaving over 1,100 people missing in its wake. The official death toll so far has been at least 115 lives, making it the deadliest fire in the US in over a century, and there is expected to be more recovered as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) searches the insides of the estimated 2,207 buildings destroyed in the flames. So far the estimated amount of land the Lāhainā fire burned is about 2,100 acres.
There were four other fires that broke out in Maui at the same time as Lāhainā: two distinct fires in Kula and Olinda, which are sometimes initially reported as one fire due to their closeness, burned around 1,300 acres combined; one fire in Pūlehu-Kīhei burned an estimated 3,200 acres; and one single acre fire led to the evacuation of Kāʻanapali. Maui carried the brunt of the fires; there were only a few other fires in the rest of Hawaii: one in O’ahu, one in the Kohala districts, and a few pop up fires in Nā’ālehu and Pāhala.