On the East Coast, where I grew up, the seasons were very identifiable. Hot in the summer, cold and snowy in the winter. Spring was rainy and in bloom, while fall was blustery and you couldn’t help but make the Rice Krispies’ sounds (snap, crackle, pop) when you walked on the sidewalk, which was inevitably covered in brittle, orange and brown leaves that had fallen to the ground and dried out.
In Southern California, we experience autumn much differently. When palm trees drop their fronds, you need to get out of the way. Our weather is not as damp or as chilly as the windy East Coast, where on some days everyone wears gloves and a scarf. And unless someone lives in the higher elevations, there’s no snow here in Southern California.
But what we do confront this time of year are dramatic and dangerous wildfires. The four deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California’s history have all burned in either the month of October or November. As the years go by, this fire-laden season is only getting longer and the fires are getting larger and larger. In fact, the seven largest wildfires in California have all occurred in the past three years!
Since the start of 2021, 7,883 fires have burned more than 2 million acres in California – an area larger than the state of Delaware.
That's more than double the latest five-year average and six times the average for the entire decade of the 1970s! New studies are showing that the pollution from wildfires could be causing more deaths than the fires themselves. Wildfire pollution is spreading far and wide.
This past July, for instance, Maine experienced bad air days due to drifting wildfire smoke from West Coast wildfires. And along the Pacific Coast, it is estimated that wildfire smoke causes approximately 3,200 deaths each year!
These numbers are unacceptable! So Breathe SoCal has taken it upon itself to put an end to this trajectory.
