gotten so bad that it wasn t safe to breathe. so my wife and i took me, the asthmatic, my elderly parent, and our kids straight to vegas. not because we wanted to gamble, but because it was close and there were cheap flights. now back then, it seemed like a oneself-in-a-lifetime thing. rescue, what is your emergency? reporter: but ever since, the fires in california have gotten worse. dixie fire. woolsey fire. are more towns burned to the ground, more forests devastated and more refugees. this episode is about californians and fire, because we got to learn how to get along. now if you re thinking that you re safe because you live outside of california, nope. wildfires happen across america, from alaska to florida. and they happen all over the world. wildfires sweeping across australia. cape town. estonia and turkey. all the way to the north pole. and even if they aren t happening near you, the effects are definitely coming to your doorstep. there i
california history. agh. lucky for us the fires hadn t made it to where my family lives in oakland, but the air had gotten so bad that it wasn t safe to breathe. so my wife and i took me, the asthmatic, my elderly parent, and our kids straight to vegas. not because we wanted to gamble, but because it was close and there were cheap flights. now back then, it seemed like a oneself-in-a-lifetime thing. fire rescue, what is your emergency? but ever since, the fires in california have a gotten worse. dixie fire. woolsey fire. are more towns burned to the ground, more forests devastated and more refugees. this episode is about californians and fire, because we got to learn how to get along. now if you re thinking that you re safe because you live outside of california, nope. wildfires happen across america, from alaska to florida. and they happen all over the world. wildfires sweeping across australia. cape town. estonia and turkey. nigeria. all the wa
okay. need another reason to heighten your already heightened sense of post 2020 panic? nine out of the ten largest wildfires in california history have occurred in the last decade. in 2021, the dixie fire alone burnt 963,000 acres. that s bigger than rhode island. feel even more panic now? good. me too. with a problem this big and scary, there must be people with solutions that can also calm me down with some slightly peppy and measured tones. yep, i m talking weathermen. specifically, meteorologists. really appreciate you both really have meteorology hands. patrick brown is a meteorologist, climate expert and professor at san jose state university s wildfire interdisciplinary research center. and holt hanley, a great weatherman name, his grad student and on air weather ankle for kspw.
and on-air weather anchor for kspw. his focus is wildfire forecasting. because that s a thing. i live in oakland. there hasn t been a wildfire since i ve been living there. but i have asthma. so during fire season, sometimes i look at the air quality off my phone, and it s don t go outside. seal every window. that s really the pathway that most people are affected by the fires. there is even an economic analysis of the 2018 season. they found that the economic impact of the health effects of the lowered air quality was just as high as all of the destruction of structures literally things burning down. so my perception in the time that i ve been here is that the wildfires are affecting a bigger swath of california. yeah. basically like ten times more area is burning per year now than there was in the 70s or 80s. why is that? so, you know, there are two things. the climate change issue, that s a global problem. and it s going to continue to get warmer in the west, that