2008 California wildfires

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Template other The 2008 wildfire season was one of California's most devastating in the 21st century. While 6,255 fires occurred, about two-thirds as many as in 2007, the total area burned— —far exceeded that of previous years.

By July 5, 2008, 328 wildfires were burning, and those fires were only 81% contained. For the first time since 1977, the US military helped with ground-based firefighting, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dispatched 400 California National Guard troops, including Chief Medical Officer Susan Pangelinan, to manage fire lines. He said the number of fires had stretched the state's fire-fighting resources thin. "One never has resources for 1,700 fires. Who has the resources for that?" Schwarzenegger said, adding, "Something is happening, clearly. There's more need for resources than ever before... it's fire season all year round."

Fires

Below is a list of all fires that exceeded during the 2008 fire season. The list is taken from CAL FIRE's list of large fires.

Name	County	Acres	Km2	Start Date	Contained Date	Notes
Wawona Nw	Mariposa		April 9, 2008	April 19, 2008
Honey Bee	Tulare		May 6, 2008	May 23, 2008
Colyear	Tehama		May 6, 2008	May 9, 2008
Avocado	Fresno		May 20, 2008	May 21, 2008
Summit	Santa Cruz		May 22, 2008	May 27, 2008
Clover	Tulare		May 28, 2008	July 20, 2008
Indians	Monterey		June 8, 2008	July 10, 2008
Jackson	Sacramento		June 10, 2008	June 12, 2008
Ophir	Butte		June 10, 2008	June 13, 2008
41	Madera		June 10, 2008	June 11, 2008
Lagrange	Tuolumne		June 10, 2008	June 11, 2008
Humboldt	Butte		June 11, 2008	June 21, 2008
Whiskey	Tehama		June 12, 2008	June 22, 2008
Albion River Lightning	Mendocino		June 20, 2008	June 30, 2008
Lime Complex	Trinity		June 20, 2008	August 15, 2008
Mad Complex	Trinity		June 20, 2008	July 21, 2008
Hells Half Complex	Trinity		June 20, 2008	July 28, 2008
South Complex	Humboldt		June 20, 2008	September 15, 2008
Brown Complex	San Benito		June 21, 2008	June 24, 2008
West Branch	Butte		June 21, 2008	June 21, 2008
Frey	Butte		June 21, 2008	June 21, 2008
Flea Valley	Butte		June 21, 2008	June 21, 2008
Flea Valley 2	Butte		June 21, 2008	June 21, 2008
Paradise	Humboldt		June 21, 2008	August 1, 2008
Blue 2 Complex	Siskiyou		June 20, 2008	Merged into the Klamath Theater Complex Fire
Popcorn	Lassen		June 21, 2008	June 22, 2008
Cub Complex	Lassen		June 21, 2008	July 20, 2008
Peterson Complex	Lassen		June 21, 2008	July 2, 2008
Wild	Napa		June 21, 2008	June 26, 2008
Basin Complex	Monterey		June 21, 2008	July 27, 2008
Wagers Lightning	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	June 21, 2008
Jack Smith Lightning	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	July 13, 2008
Mallo B	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	July 17, 2008
Squaw 1 Lightning 2	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	July 13, 2008
Red Mountain 1	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	August 1, 2008
Gate Lightning	Mendocino		June 21, 2008	July 13, 2008
Soda Complex	Lake		June 21, 2008	July 26, 2008
Canyon Complex	Plumas		June 21, 2008	September 30, 2008
Iron Alps Complex	Trinity		June 21, 2008	September 9, 2008	10 fatalities
Sta 57 Ono Cdf Igo 2	Shasta		June 21, 2008	July 24, 2008
Whitmore Old Crow C2	Shasta		June 21, 2008	July 15, 2008
EO2A	Shasta		June 21, 2008	July 6, 2008
Stein	Shasta		June 21, 2008	July 7, 2008
Moon	Shasta		June 21, 2008	August 9, 2008
Platina 4	Trinity		June 21, 2008	July 4, 2008
Lewiston 8	Trinity		June 21, 2008	July 23, 2008
Lakehead	Shasta		June 21, 2008	August 23, 2008
Oliver	Mariposa		June 21, 2008	June 26, 2008
North Mountain	Tuolumne		June 21, 2008	July 3, 2008
American River Complex	Placer		June 21, 2008	July 30, 2008
Yuba River Complex	Sierra		June 21, 2008	July 15, 2008
Whiskeytown Complex	Shasta		June 21, 2008	July 19, 2008
Klamath Theater Complex	Siskiyou		June 21, 2008	September 30, 2008	2 firefighters killed.
Popcorn	Lassen		June 22, 2008	July 8, 2008
Mill Complex	Tehama		June 22, 2008	June 29, 2008
Walker	Lake		June 22, 2008	June 29, 2008
Orr Springs Rd Ukv 2	Mendocino		June 22, 2008	July 10, 2008
5-8 Cliff Lightning	Mendocino		June 22, 2008	July 13, 2008
Venture	Shasta		June 22, 2008	July 4, 2008
Corral	Lassen		June 23, 2008	July 7, 2008
Oliver	Mariposa		June 23, 2008	July 6, 2008
Mill Creek	Tehama		June 24, 2008	July 1, 2008
Piute	Kern		June 28, 2008	July 25, 2008
Hardy	Mendocino		June 30, 2008	June 30, 2008
Gap	Santa Barbara		July 1, 2008	July 28, 2008
Butch Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 4, 2008
Lost Pipe Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 10, 2008
Jack Smith Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 15, 2008
Albion Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 8, 2008
Horse Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 8, 2008
Orr Series Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 13, 2008
Montgomery Flat Lightning	Mendocino		July 4, 2008	July 15, 2008
Alder Creek Beach	Mendocino		July 7, 2008	July 7, 2008
Tehipite	Fresno		July 19, 2008	November 11, 2008
Panther	Siskiyou		July 24, 2008	September 30, 2008
Telegraph	Mariposa		July 25, 2008	September 15, 2008
Rich	Plumas		July 29, 2008	August 10, 2008
Craig	Butte		August 3, 2008	August 11, 2008
Rim	Butte		August 13, 2008	August 13, 2008
Empire	Butte		August 13, 2008	August 13, 2008
Camp Beldon and Pit	Butte		July 8, 2008	August 13, 2008
Smokey	Butte		August 13, 2008	August 13, 2008
Jack	Siskiyou		August 17, 2008	August 22, 2008
Gladding	Placer		September 1, 2008	September 3, 2008
Gulch	Shasta		September 7, 2008	September 11, 2008
Hidden	Tulare		September 10, 2008	September 30, 2008
Chalk	Monterey		September 25, 2008	October 29, 2008
November	San Diego		October 8, 2008	October 9, 2008
Marek	Los Angeles		October 12, 2008	October 16, 2008
Sesnon	Los Angeles		October 13, 2008	October 18, 2008
Juliett	San Diego		October 13, 2008	October 17, 2008
Lackerman	Butte		October 23, 2008	October 23, 2008
Tea	Santa Barbara		November 13, 2008	November 17, 2008
Sayre	Los Angeles		November 14, 2008	November 20, 2008
Freeway Complex	Riverside		November 15, 2008	November 22, 2008

Summer fires

The Summer 2008 fires were a concentrated outbreak of wildfires during the late spring and summer of 2008. Over 3,596 individual fires were burning at the height of the period, burning large portions of forests and chaparral in California, injuring at least 34 individuals and killing 32. The majority of the fires were started by lightning from dry thunderstorms on June 20, although some earlier fires ignited during mid-May. International aid from Greece, Cyprus, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand helped fight the fires.

The first of the wildfires was the Big Horn Fire, which ignited on May 13. Three other minor wildfires ignited subsequently, but were extinguished by May 17. On May 20, the Avocado Fire ignited in Fresno County, only to be extinguished 2 days later. On May 22, 2008, the human-caused Summit Fire broke out in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which became the first major fire.

On July 5, 2008, California Governor Schwarzenegger commented that "I've been driving up and down the state of California going to all the various fires, and you can imagine, this state is very prepared for fire, but when you wake up one morning and have 500 fires across the state, it was a real shock to me... only to find the next morning there were 1,000 fires, and the next morning 1,400 fires, and then 1,700 fires igniting over 14 days."

The Gap Fire near Goleta in Santa Barbara County burned . The fire was contained on July 29, after several weeks of activity.

By July 11, 2008, it was reported that a total of was burned, a total exceeding the initial estimate of burned by the October 2007 California wildfires. On July 12, 2008, the area burned reached , exceeding the estimated burned by the 2003 California wildfires, making the Summer 2008 wildfires the greatest wildfire event in Californian history, in terms of burned area. On that date 20,274 personnel had been committed to fight the fires. Total resources included 467 hand crews, 1,503 engines, 423 water tenders, 291 bulldozers, 142 helicopters, 400 soldiers and numerous air tankers. The fire was responsible for the deaths of 23 individuals.

On July 25, a blaze sparked by target shooting broke out in Mariposa County, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of central California. By the following day, the Telegraph Fire had gone from , and within days had destroyed 21 homes in the community of Midpines. Residents were evacuated from approximately 300 homes that were immediately threatened, with an additional 4,000 homes placed on standby for evacuation in Midpines, Greeley Hill, and Coulterville.

During August, wildfire activity began to diminish, although there were still hundreds of wildfires still burning. On August 29, wildfire activity had largely ended, although three more wildfires ignited after September 1, beginning with the Gladding Fire. On September 10, the Colony Fire was 100% contained, ending the last of the Summer 2008 California wildfires. The Summer 2008 wildfires burned a total of between May 2008 and September 2008, comprising the vast majority of burned land by wildfires in California in 2008.

In total, the Summer 2008 wildfires burned a total of , which accounts for 84% of the total area burned during the 2008 wildfire season. In addition, the Summer 2008 fires cost over $92.38 million (2008 USD) to fight.

The Basin Complex Fire in the Ventana Wilderness became the third largest wildfire in California's history based on size (until it was surpassed in size by the 2013 Rim Fire), and also the second-costliest wildfire to extinguish in U.S. history.

Weather

The fires broke out after three years of below-normal rainfall dehydrated much of California's forests and woodlands, making them prone to wildfires. Spring 2008 for California was the driest on record for many locations; for example, San Francisco registered only of rain out of a normal of from March to May. As vegetation turned into bone-dry tinder in early June, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought for the first time in 17 years. Dry thunderstorms and lightning, rarely seen on the California coastline in June, rolled onshore on the weekend of June 20–21. The storm unleashed 25,000 to 26,000 dry lightning strikes across Northern and Central California, igniting more than 2,000 fires. The number of wildfires skyrocketed in the days after the thunderstorms and high daily daytime temperatures of over dramatically increased the various fires' growth. The same thunderstorms also caused fires in Oregon.

A heat wave commenced on July 7, with temperatures in inland locations, such as the Central Valley soaring above . Lake Berryessa recorded a high temperature of , prompting weather agencies like the National Weather Service to issue high fire danger warnings. These near to record-breaking temperatures concerned many firefighters, who feared that the high heat, low humidity, and high-elevation winds could make firefighting more strenuous.

Contributing factors

John Juskie, a National Weather Service science officer, was quoted in June 2008 in the Los Angeles Times stating "in historic terms, we're at record dry levels." The spring of 2008 not only broke the record for least inches of rainfall, at 0.17 of an inch, it represented less than one-third of the previous record low of 0.55 of an inch of rainfall in 1934.

A record lack of rainfall, severely dry vegetation and uncharacteristically windy weather combined to create tinderbox conditions across Northern California. In most areas of Northern California, the grasses and brush were as dry in June as they normally would be in October. Moisture content was less than 2%, compared with about 40% normally for this time of year, fire officials stated. In addition, "no one has seen a springtime like this with the winds," Juskie said.

Smoke and air quality

Air quality in northern and central California deteriorated as a result of smoke from the wildfires, especially in the Central Valley from Bakersfield in the southern San Joaquin Valley section to Redding in the northern Sacramento Valley section.

Northern California

From June 21 to June 27, much of Northern California was covered in a thick blanket of smoke, which reduced visibility and turned the sky yellow and the Moon red.

Some areas endured record levels of air pollution, along with hazardous concentrations of particulate matter. These smoky and hazy conditions prompted health officials to issue air quality advisories and warnings, as particulate matter reached unhealthy levels in the North Bay on June 25. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District urged the elderly and people with respiratory problems to stay indoors. In spite of the warnings, health officials noted a jump in the number of people with eye and throat irritation. The bad air quality also forced the cancellation of the Western States Endurance Run, the first in the race's 31-year history. Air quality began to improve on June 28, followed by decreased smoke and improved visibility a day later. By June 30, residents in the Sacramento Valley saw blue skies and good air quality, as a result of onshore winds and the Delta breezes.

However, air quality in Oregon degraded as plumes of smoke drifted northward instead of concentrating in the Central Valley.

Spare the Air

Hazy conditions returned on July 7, along with high temperatures over in the Central Valley. The heat and smoke combined forced public health officials and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue "Spare the Air" advisories and an emergency plan for heat waves, respectively. Air quality districts issued another Spare the Air day for July 8, July 9, and July 10, as calm wind conditions in Northern California failed to blow away the smoke from the wildfires. Smoky conditions continued into late August, when most of the wildfires were extinguished. The smoke from the fires finally began to disperse on September 10, after the last of the wildfires was fully contained.

File:7 11 08 Carson City NV smoke from California Wildfires A.jpg

View east of the smokey sky, from Carson City, Nevada (11 July 2008).

Health Impact

A paper in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology studied a group of adolescent rhesus macaque monkeys that were exposed during infancy to smoke from northern California wildfires in 2008. They found that monkeys exposed to wildfire smoke as infants had "significantly reduced inspiratory capacity, residual volume, vital capacity, and functional residual capacity per unit of body weight." There was also a trend of reduced total lung capacity in animals exposed to wildfire smoke as infants. Adolescent monkeys exposed to wildfire smoke as infants were also found to have a lessened PBMCs responses to TLR Ligands. TLR5 has been linked with the asthma phenotype experimentally and in human subjects. An important finding in the study was that monkeys over 200 miles away from the combustion were still found to have significant immune and respiratory changes.

The findings were consistent with many other human group studies and suggest that children who underwent the same experience as the monkeys in the study have a high chance of exhibiting similar health problems but, that because normal development of rhesus monkeys is accelerated compared to human children the relative impact of this amount of wildfire smoke exposure might differ.

November Fires

File:MODIS Fires in southern California November 2008.jpg

Smoke and highlighted burn areas imaged on November 16 by the Terra Earth observation satellite.

The month of November saw a large number of fires, around 2,151, which began burning across Southern California on November 13, with 4 of them becoming major wildfires. At least 400 houses and 500 mobile homes were destroyed. According to USA Today, these wildfires combined with those from October 2007 and the Summer of 2008 were the worst group of wildfires that California had experienced in two decades.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told residents, "If you wait until the fire gets there you have waited too long, this fire can be on you in a moment's notice." California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties. Governor Schwarzenegger described the conditions contributing to the fires as a "perfect storm," including strong Santa Ana and sundowner winds, with gusts reaching , as well as high temperatures, low humidity, and dry conditions.

The most significant fires were the following:

• Montecito Tea Fire - a wildfire that started on November 13, 2008, in the wealthy community of Montecito, in Santa Barbara County, California, resulting in the destruction of 210 homes. Many celebrities have homes in the area of the Tea Fire, including Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe, and Steven Spielberg. The home of actor Christopher Lloyd was destroyed in the fire.
• Sayre Fire - a wildfire that started on November 13, 2008, in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles, California, resulting in the destruction of at least 630 structures, including 500 mobile homes, nine single-family homes, and eleven commercial buildings. The loss of more than 500 residences is the "worst loss of homes due to fire" ever in the City of Los Angeles, California, exceeding the loss of 484 residences in the 1961 Bel Air fire.
• Freeway Complex Fire - The combination of 2 wildfires, one of which was known as the Corona Fire by the news media, or Triangle Complex Fire, that started at approximately 9:00 a.m. PDT on November 15, 2008, and spread across the communities of Corona, Chino Hills, Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills and Brea in Orange and Riverside County, California, and also spread to Diamond Bar in Los Angeles County. Later on November 15, the Landfill Fire ignited at 10:45 AM, and early on May 16, both wildfires merged into the Freeway Complex Fire. The Freeway Complex Fire burned about , injured 14 firefighters, and destroyed about 200 structures, and forced the evacuations of about 7,000 homes.

Fatalities

During the season, the National Interagency Fire Center reported 13 firefighter fatalities while battling wildfires. Nine were killed in a helicopter crash, while others died of a heart attack, a falling tree, and an entrapment. In all, 32 people were killed by the wildfires.

See also

• October 2007 California wildfires
• 2017 California wildfires
  • October 2017 Northern California wildfires
• Rush Fire
• List of California wildfires