BONUS CONTENT: A 2019 NYT article about wildfires remains true two years later

—Wildfires reflect our past, present, and future

New York Times journalist Jon Mooallem tells a tale in his 2019 article about a burning California city named Paradise. In fact, ‘We Have Fire Everywhere’ told a story from our past, present, and future — become a more common narrative for many as increasing temperatures and mega-droughts produce wildfires more frequently and powerfully.

In the 31-page article, Mooallem used anecdotes, datum, creative visuals, and several videos and photographs to draw his single conclusion about the future of wildfires. In his final paragraph of hundreds, he wrote: “How did it end? It hasn’t. It won’t.”

These words still ring true almost two years later.

Major wildfires have burned across California throughout the summer. NPR reports the Dixie Fire — the largest in U.S. history — has been active for more than two months, igniting in nearly the exact same place as the 2018 fire that Mooallem told the story of a year later. 

The journalist noted, then, that victims weren’t “just trapped in a fire; (they were) trapped in the 21st Century,” pointing out how the once-less-common emergency has become our permanent reality due to the changes and trends specific to this century. Many wildfires, over the last couple decades, have begun as climate disasters because of our warming globe — a problem that worsens each day — but several organizations reported last year that a gender-reveal-party-gone-wrong sparked a fire which burned more than 23,000 acres.

As wildfires become easier to ignite and more difficult to put out, this year already, the National Interagency Fire Center has reported about 45,000 wildfires throughout our nation — more than last year’s total — proving the journalist’s claims to be factual thus far.

To exist in the 21st Century is to have wildfires that burn down whole cities and towns.