I don't get it. While I wasn't alive in the period immediately following the gold rush, I've been here over 40 years and I don't ever remember fires blanketing our entire state in smoke for extended periods of time until recently.

Did we just get lucky somehow between the Gold Rush and 2018?

I agree w/ you on global effort for climate change. Hopefully we can get started on a National level soon.

no we didn’t get lucky. We started fighting fires which used to occur naturally. That leads to accumulation of unhealthy forest growth which eventually burns in a big way (now).

And of course other effects like PG&E not maintaining their grid => unnecessary fires; more people live in forests => more deadly/damaging fires; etc.

As usual, looking at data and scientific consensus will help, I just hope we start doing so sooner, rather than later

Didn't you say we started fighting fires right after the gold rush?

You'd expect maybe after 30 or 40 years in 1900, we would have seen the massive statewide fires like we have now.

But I find it hard to believe we have to wait all the way until 2017 to see the results of "fighting fires"

>> I've been here over 40 years and I don't ever remember fires blanketing our entire state in smoke for extended periods of time until recently.

This stuff was not uncommon over the hundreds of years of this country's history. As other commenters have mentioned, it's lasted for decades in the American East, West, and particularly Midwest.

Climate change is an issue, but saying this stuff never happens and (presumably human-led) climate change is the sole reason is not really likely to be true.

Can you point me to your source for the last time 3.1M acres of land burned in California in the span of a month?

Yes. There have been periods of decades where the East Coast was basically uninhabitable. There is a reason why civilization was just barely in the megalithic in America when Columbus arrived.