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  • California's largest wildfire ever recently became a Giga fire.

  • It's a term the US hasn't had to use in more than a decade.

  • I'm referring to the August complex fire in northern California.

  • It's taken the top spot for the largest fire in California history and has now burned more than one million acres.

  • Once a wildfire burns one million acres or more, it gets coined as a giga fire.

  • This is one notch above a mega fire, which experts used when, as you may have guessed, Ah, fire has scorched 100,000 acres or more.

  • The country's most recent Giga fire was the 2004 Taylor Complex Fire in Alaska.

  • Before that, it was the Yellowstone fires in 1988.

  • So this is yet another unfortunate superlative foran.

  • Already record breaking fire season, the US has had tens of thousands of fires this year.

  • Many of these have been large wildfires, leading to more than 8.3 million acres burned way more than we would see in a normal year.

  • Half of that 8.3 million has occurred in California alone, making this year the states worst year on record, according to Cal Fire And speaking of the history books, this fire season has not only given way to the largest fire ever in California.

  • It's also produced five of the six largest fires on record for the state.

  • Experts say a warming climate is the culprit evident by the exceptional drought in heat for all the West Coast.

  • We have a lot of fire season left to go to, and conditions unfortunately aren't set to improve anytime soon.

California's largest wildfire ever recently became a Giga fire.

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