California Wildfire Devastation Was Entirely Preventable Through Proper Land Management

President Joe Biden declared the Caldor Fire threatening communities at Lake Tahoe, California an emergency Wednesday night to dispatch federal resources to the relief effort.

That blaze, only 25 percent contained as of this writing, has already burned more than 200,000 acres with roughly 32,300 structures in the path of destruction, according to a local California news outlet.

Meanwhile, the Dixie Fire 120 miles north of the area scorched half of Lassen Volcanic National Park and remains only 52 percent contained. Billed as one of the largest in modern California history, the inferno has already engulfed 1,300 structures and continues to spread, presenting a nightmare to the 12,000 people who live within a five-mile radius, as calculated by The New York Times.

The pair of mega wildfires mark another tragic summer on the heels of a record-setting season last year, in which more than 10 million acres burned in the highest yearly total since modern-day tracking began in 1983. It’s not just that 10 million acres burned, but also that many acres burned as a consequence of high-intensity fires. The latter claimed more than 17,500 structures with damages totaling $16.5 billion, according to the Yale Center for Environmental Communication. Last year’s fires ranked the third costliest on record, behind 2017 at $24 billion an