'Too late to stop it': California's future hinges on managing megafires

This year's historic blazes and apocalyptic skies will become routine. Hope lies in rethinking how we live with fire

California's historic wildfires have served up astonishing scenes of destruction that have claimed several dozen lives, incinerated huge tracts of land and caused dystopian orange skies to loom over a populace choked by toxic smoke. But, in time, the sort of destruction and anguish suffered in 2020 may seem routine, even mild.

The record scale of the flames, which have consumed an area larger than the state of Connecticut, is bringing scientists' expectations of the climate crisis into reality. Rather than merely entering a new but stable era, the US west is on a moving escalator to further extremes. In 20 years from now, the current circumstances will feel more normal," said Waleed Abdalati, former chief scientist of Nasa. It's not that we are all screwed, but it's too late to put a stop to it. We can slow it, but we can't stop it now."