Before the settlement of America, some 1.5 million acres of Californian forest burned every year (Ngu and Chinoy, par. 9). In the latter half of the 20th century, that number was reduced to 57,000 acres annually (Ngu and Chinoy, par. 12), but from 2008 to 2017, roughly 6.9 million acres were set ablaze (Ngu and Chinoy, par. 20). In more recent fires, it is not just forests that are being burned; homes, cities, and sites of human development are all being turned to ash. In the past two decades, California saw nine of its ten largest wildfires ever (Masri, par. 3), and in 2018, it saw its worst wildfire season yet (Masri, par. 1). According to Merriam-Websters dictionary, a wildfire is defined as a sweeping and destructive conflagration, especially in a wilderness or a rural area (Merriam-Webster, 2019), but fires have been moving from forests to urban areas. The controversy over wildfires turns into a question of what to do about volatile wildfires. One v
iewpoint is that Congress needs to pass legislation to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere by taxing carbon emissions and limiting funds for fossil fuel companies, but others argue it is time that people come to terms with the fact that when wildfires occur naturally, and they must be left alone to burn in order to prevent larger, more dangerous wildfires that could become life-threatening. Some think the issue should be handled at a more local level, saying that homes need to be made fire-resistant with various features to keep the people living in them safe and that vegetation around urban areas needs to be well maintained so as to not provide fuel for the fire. In the fiery debate over how to handle wildfires, climate change specialists, esteemed editorial writers, and forest directors are stakeholders. The burning question everyone is racing to find an answer to is, What should be done about the wildfire detriment?