U.S.

California Wildfires Massive But Not Deadliest In State History

The current fires have killed 31 people but 85 fatalities were recorded in 2018's Butte County inferno, a Los Angeles Times tally shows.

California Wildfires Massive But Not Deadliest In State History
Noah Berger / AP
SMS

The wildfires in California are the largest ever recorded.

But new data crunching shows, fortunately, they're not the deadliest.

So far this year... more than 6,200 square miles have burned.

That's the size of Connecticut. That's nearly triple the previous record.

California says the average wildfire size used to be under 50,000 acres. It's now over 300,000.

In terms of fatalities, 31 people have died this year in California. But a Los Angeles Times tally shows that the inferno in Butte County north of Sacramento called the Camp Fire killed 85 in November 2018.