California’s wildfires are causing more and more damage

Jul 19, 2022

With the collaboration of Statista.

California’s continuous battle with high temperatures has contributed to devastating wildfire seasons. Image: Unsplash/Michael Held

Anna Fleck

Data Journalist, Statista

Firefighters in the US state of California have been battling a wildfire for almost two weeks.
The amount of land burned by wildfires in the state has risen steeply in the past five years.
This is costing California more and more money – up from $61 million in the 1990s to more than $400 million in the 2010s.

The Washburn Fire in California has burned at least 1,591 acres of land and is edging ever closer to Yosemite National Park’s ancient grove of redwood trees, or giant sequoias. Firefighters have been battling the blaze, which started on July 7, and have evacuated 1,600 people from the area.

Fire seasons play out differently every year. While it’s too early to tell what this year’s damage will be, a look at the five-year rolling averages of acres burned by wildfires in California shows that, despite a quiet 2019, the average area of destruction is growing. With an exceptionally bad 2020, the figure will remain elevated for a while.

California’s continuous battle with drought along with unusually high temperatures and dry vegetation has contributed to devastating fire seasons. The cost of mitigation has been rising quickly - from $61 million in the 1990s to more than $400 million in the 2010s.

A bar chart showing the number of acres burned by wildfires in California.

Growing danger of Californian wildfires. Image: Statista.

Discover

How is the World Economic Forum fighting the climate crisis?

The Global Risks Report 2023 ranked failure to mitigate climate change as one of the most severe threats in the next two years, while climate- and nature- related risks lead the rankings by severity over the long term.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate is a multistakeholder platform that seeks to safeguard our global commons and drive systems transformation. It is accelerating action on climate change towards a net-zero, nature-positive future.

Learn more about our impact:

Scaling up green technologies: Through a partnership with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, and over 65 global businesses, the First Movers Coalition has committed $12 billion in purchase commitments for green technologies to decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.
1 trillion trees: Over 90 global companies have committed to conserve, restore and grow more than 8 billion trees in 65 countries through the 1t.org initiative – which aims to achieve 1 trillion trees by 2030.
Sustainable food production: Our Food Action Alliance is engaging 40 partners who are working on 29 flagship initiatives to provide healthy, nutritious, and safe foods in ways that safeguard our planet. In Vietnam, it supported the upskilling of 2.2 million farmers and aims to provide 20 million farmers with the skills to learn and adapt to new agricultural standards.
Eliminating plastic pollution: Our Global Plastic Action Partnership is bringing together governments, businesses and civil society to shape a more sustainable world through the eradication of plastic pollution. In Ghana, more than 2,000 waste pickers are making an impact cleaning up beaches, drains and other sites.
Protecting the ocean: Our 2030 Water Resources Group has facilitated almost $1 billion to finance water-related programmes, growing into a network of more than 1,000 partners and operating in 14 countries/states.
Circular economy: Our SCALE 360 initiative is reducing the environmental impacts of value chains within the fashion, food, plastics and electronics industries, positively impacting over 100,000 people in 60 circular economy interventions globally.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us.

Have you read?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

United States

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how United States is affecting economies, industries and global issues

Forum Stories newsletter

Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.

Subscribe today

More on Nature and Biodiversity
See all

Resisting resistance: How animal health can prevent a global crisis

Pablo Cifuentes

December 18, 2024

The top nature and climate stories of 2024

1:44

Drought could make the Panama Canal impassable. Here’s the plan to save it

2:39

Climate change could slash 7% off corporate earnings every year by 2035

Climate change and land use scenarios to protect biodiversity

How Incheon in South Korea is building an ecological hub for a nature-positive future