Animated Maps: California Wildfires from 1910-2019 

Love to see the video again without leaving past fires on the map...

Are you going to update this at the end of 2020....boy oh boy things are getting ugly...

You know it's bad when you have to name your Wildfires like Hurricanes.

2007: California has first million acre year: 2020: California has >4 million acres burned. Oregon has >1 million. Individual California fire exceeds 1 million acres.

I live on the California coast, and can see smoke from one of the fires right now outside my window; multiple friends of mine have been evacuated, so this hits very close. It is notable that the first Spanish to reach this part of the coast commented on how desolate the hills were. Local tribes managed the danger - and cultivated important grasses in the process - by yearly controlled burning of the land. With our current population density this is not a viable option, but it points to the fact that this danger is not new. Well done map, by the way!

I agree with this comment: "It is notable that the first Spanish to reach this part of the coast commented on how desolate the hills were. Local tribes managed the danger - and cultivated important grasses in the process - by yearly controlled burning of the land."

Lived in california 34 years of my life, seen some bad fires during my life. I still remember the big earthquakes too. I left California 3 years ago and wont be going back.

If you look at pictures of Yosemite in the late 1800's it was covered in wide areas of grasslands. Then they put fire suppression policies in place. 100 years later and those grasslands are covered in trees.

2020: 4.3 MILLION acres and counting.

California fires in 2020 be like: BUT WAIT, THERES MORE!

I have lived in southern California since 1946. I've seen a lot of fires, several that burned from the San Fernando Valley , over the mountains to Malibu at the Pacific ocean. It's always been bad but it's a lot worse now and more and more people are moving into fire areas. Now we fear the rain and mudslides. Earthquakes please stay away.

Wow! Thank you - this really helps with perspective!

Great visualization! FYI the labels for the locations of the Ranch and Carr fires are switched.

With the music, I felt like I was traveling with Doctor Who on a time journey in the TARDIS.

Great job btw!

Cool video! At 1:25, you have the Carr and Ranch fire locations swapped. The Carr fire was just outside of Redding.

kudos for the map. Presenting data in a way that needs no explanation is a terrific thing.

I live in redding ca. The carr fire wasnt south of redding. It WAS redding.

I live about 20 miles always from the mountains. We had complete sun blockout for days, but it’s getting better now. Blue faded sky with air quality improving.

Nice Visual Education......Thanks Esri

One of the most destructive fires, Oakland firestorm 1991 ("Tunnel Fire") didn't even make the list. From Wikipedia: The fire ultimately killed 25 people and injured 150 others. The 1,520 acres (620 ha) destroyed included 2,843 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units. The economic loss from the fire was estimated at $1.5 billion (1991 USD). This is when wildfires became for me, living near the fire in Oakland, not some TV event, but a real monster.

Thank you fire fighters. And thank you for your efforts on this cool video ! Cooking with Chefs ...........

Very cool animation! I would love to see one for Colorado

In case you update this video by the end of this year, *please include the year of the wildfires in the rank* in addition to their area. This information is key! Thanks

Finally some cool graphics to display the boring data. Was waiting for this for years

"Oh, I wish I was in the land of wildfires, Desolate hills and more wildfires."

Very well done.. thanx..

Its lit!🔥

Make one for Oregon and Washington next! That shift in fire severity will probably be even greater, as the forests west of the Cascade Range divide are historically not accustomed to getting large major fires, (unlike the eastern side, which like most of the western forests in the US, needs fire for survival). The slight change in temperature has led to previously wetter and moister western Cascade and Coast Range Oregon and Washington side forests to grow drier.

Esri, can we get a training lesson designed around creating beautiful products like this?

Will you be adding all the fires of 2020? Thank you for posting.

This video is great but paced too quickly to really take it all in... however, there is an option available to change the speed of the video. Ice loaded all the way down to the lowest setting and that helped tremendously, even the sound is slowed down which makes it all that much more eerie.

West Coast: Fires East Coast: Floods/Hurricanes Mid-West: Tornadoes/Hurricanes All coasts: Tsunamis/Floods/Earthquakes All areas in ring of fire: Volcano There really isn't any safe place- Disaster lies everywhere. BTW I'm in California and the fires have been mostly contained but I feel this year we aren't going to get much rain or snow and the drought will come back...

Can you make one with the newest fires?

Super cool.

I am looking to plot California annual rainfall vs fire acreage burned. Is there a table of the annual acreages and # of fires as displayed for each year? Data source or was it calculated from the perimeters? Thanks.

Esri I would love to see a population growth mapping as well. Could these more frequent and horrific fires be happening in areas of increased population ?

Interesting, but it doesn't give you a means of comparison because you leave the old fires there.. This means your statement that there have always been fires in Cali is somewhat dubious. It's the frequency and the extent of the fires that is the point.

Woww, cool animation👍🏼💯🙏🏼🌎❤

Very good public service video. Be great if you could do this with other weather disasters. I'll have to check your RU-vid site. Maybe you HAVE done other videos like this for other weather disasters. Thank you. 🙏

It's so sad imagine back then how beautiful the forest was there must have been so many trees in the local Southern California mountains

Fires always burned in Cali, even before people. People moved in, started extinguishing fires and building homes in these places. But now the fires have returned and mother nature is claiming what is hers.

This video is great with the exception of an error at the end. The ranch and carr fires are swapped on the map.

Can you tell me where to learn this kind of animated map making? I really need help in this regard, please!

To me it looks as though the same areas keep getting burn.

The labels for the Carr and the Ranch fire are switched

This is both an amazing and scary animation. I would love to learn how to do that 3D effect with the negative extrusion. Was that done in ArcGIS Pro or in the other software yo mentioned in the comments?

On Aug 20-21, 1910 in northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana, hurricane force winds fanned numerous small fires into a conflagration that burned 3 million acres, killed 87 people, wiped many small towns off the map and created the "suppress all fires" mindset in the Forest Service that created the high fuel loads that we are living with today. This fire has been analyzed by many (Google 1910 fire), books have been written and national policy permanently changed our relationship with our forests to favor conservation. This map shows the legacy of that 1910 fire.

Too fast. Can’t this be slowed down so we could see what is going on

All along the fault lines and where the state is moving N/W. Thanks

It would also be good to show population and urbanization maps too. Land use and changes in vegetation over time as well. Temperature and rainfall too. You might find a correlation amongst all these factors!

Everyone’s moving out. Thanks Gavin.

They don't make ships out of wood anymore, and you don't make firebreaks like Australians used to do them.

2020 fire season: Hello

Please update this esri to the 2021, ame exact animated map! Thank you

As of October 4, 2020, the August Complex in northern California has burned 993,191 acres (1,552 square miles) and is 54% contained.

Living in Culver City, California for 20 years and going to places like Lake Tahoe, Big Bear Lake, Mammoth, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Eureka for family camping trips every other year, and seeing the scars from the fires in the past and seeing the wildfires burning over areas they already burned is just crazy. California is beautiful until the wildfires come to destroy it all and re-do the landscape all over again. California does have a cycle to have wildfires but majority of the largest fires in USA history and California history show that humans are the real problem and not mother nature just doing her thing. When its man made, the man usually knows what day the weather will be best to burn a ton of acres within minutes. The worst wildfires in states history started between late July to late October and burn usually, especially the larger fires in history, burn until December or even into Spring the following year. Also 8/10 of the largest fires in California history have been in the last 10 years, 10. Matilija, Ventura County, 1932: 220,000 acres. 9. Carr, Shasta County, 2018: 229,651 acres. 8. Zaca, Santa Barbara County, 2007: 240,207 acres. 7. Rim, Tuolumne County, 2013: 257,314 acres. 6. Rush, Lassen County, 2012: 271,911 acres. 5. Cedar, San Diego County, 2003: 273,246 acres. 4. Thomas, Ventura County, 2017: 281,893 acres. 3. SCU Lightning Complex, San Joaquin County, 2020: 339,968 acres. 2. LNU Lightning Complex, Napa County, 2020, 341, 243 acres. 1. Mendocino Complex, Mendocino County, 2018: 459,123 acres. I only saw Carr, Zaca, Cedar, Thomas, and Mendocino fires in person because i have been interested on how wildfires move and wondering how to stop them before they reach city limits. Been interested with wildfires since i was 4 years old.

Nice! Interesting if the number and year of man-made forests / wilderness could be transposed to differentiate increasing fires related to addition of forest preserves versus that of increasing temperatures or may be arson.

what is the orange stuff, compared to the obvious yellow/fire zones? Please clarify, @Esri

Is there any tutorial for this animated map? I would really like to have some information and guidelines for this particular map. Can anybody help out? Thanks!

We used to have great forests with grand trees and abundant wildlife.

Firstly, firebreaks are now somewhat illegal under state law. Next... L.A. metro went from a population of hundreds of people to 18-23 million, depending on how you count, rather quickly over just a few hundred years. Similarly the entire state went from perhaps 50,000 people to 40 million. Yes, fires are started by lightning, but it's mostly person-based interference that is the cause of fires. Lots of them are magnified by the cessation of proper firebreaks, which are now illegal under state law. Electrification is another problem... but again comes down to human interaction. We need firebreaks to be institutionalized. Then, we need decent equipment+manpower in the regions that are still growing.

When I lived in Southern California there were fires every late Summer. I didn't know that before I moved there. I found it unsettling.

Fascinating

Can you make a tutorial how to make it?

I've live here for 40 years, Never seen fires like i have in the past 6 years. Theres a lot of errors in that report above

Since there are a lot more wealthier properties , how does that effect the land management overall ? Are the fire locations correlated to residential density or more randomly distributed?

for those wondering, at the time of this comment we are at 4.1 million acres in 2020. thats 20x 2019 and only is the number from mid-october. hopefully winter will bring less fire.

If only there was a way to keep all that carbon from going up in smoke, and simultaneously to use the renewable resources of trees for something like construction while thinning the forest enough to prevent wildfires... if only...

California is literally always on fire

Its remarkable how fire free the central valley is. I'd expect that in the desert areas (very little to burn) but the valley is fairly well developed although its mostly crop land. Maybe that's the answer, it's well irrigated?

Id love to see the video again w/o them leaving past fires on the map.

Time for forest management!!

Controlled burns and logging dead timber would reduce wildfires in California but a tremendous amount

Thank god I live near la. Just on the rim of the fire to the left of LA along the coast. Not in the madness of the city, get to enjoy the beach everyday. Perfect town

Little brush fires have always been common in California but these massive destroy everything fires are something new. I lived in California for 27 years most years there was little to no smoke, weeks of smoke is not normal. I think the really bad fires are being caused by a combination of hotter drier weather and overgrown forests. Unfortunately rain is still 1 to 3 months away so it will be smoky for a while, the smoke won't be as bad if the temperature drops to more normal levels and the airflow becomes less stagnant more west to east.

Looks to be directly on fault lines and volcanic fields. But what do I know?

yes it is a stunning visualization, but sorta a misrepresentation b/c it is layering the new years burn pattern over the previous. It is not accounting for re-growth. With a time series range of 100yrs it could be misleading. Can someone critique my 'critique' ?

Would like to see an updated video after the 2020 fire season.

It would be interesting to do this with an overlay of population growth/expansion within the state as well.

With all those fires you’d think it was totally managed.

After all California means Hot Furnace (caliinte=hot, el forno=furnace).

this was very interesting,

Great video ESRI, can you give a brief overview of the steps to create this and how you used each software?

Weather War 1 2020

Seems apocalyptic!

2018 fires: It can't get any worse, can it? 2020: Hold my embers...

cool map

Many fires start right by fault lines and volcanic fields as well as man made oil fields

Yes spend a trillion to put a golf cart on mars but can't put on wild fires right here

For 2020, some MAJOR revisions will be taking place. The North Complex fire alone is 280,000 acres and growing (60% contained), although some posts already claim it's much larger.

Super interesting!! You can see places burn multiple times over the last 100 years. This is understandable, we have only been keeping records for not much longer. There is no problem with wildfires, only problems with human encroachment into wildlands. Its expected.... unfortunately for the homes that have burned. Maybe a new approach to urban interface developments??

... and they STILL don't have a forest management plan in place in California.

I wonder where the Sasquatch will Migrate🤔.

@Esri, you switched the "Carr" fire with the "Ranch" fire.

I can’t wait till they have a whole video about 2020

How come the fires 🔥 are along the faults?

Looks like the forest management is not doing a good job.

Do you have a video for Oregon?

Yall take care out there