A man driving on a national forest road stops on tinder-dry grass. The hot engine acts like a match, kindling a wildfire that burns thousands of acres.
And authorities suspect that a blaze that destroyed 78 homes in the
A growing number of wildfires in
Government statistics show that people were faulted for 5,208 wildfires in
There is no single cause for the increase, experts say, with issues ranging from better investigations and reporting to the warming effects of climate change. But most agree: In a densely populated, drought-stricken region where development pushes into areas known to burn, the result is predictable.
"As the drought continues in California, there are going to be more human-caused fires," says Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the National Interagency
"You can see the spread of development in virtually every area of the West," he says. "More people is always going to equate to more fires."
Southern California's fire season was once thought to be limited to the fall, when
And some of those blazes are leading to the courtroom, where prosecutors are bringing charges from arson to negligence.
Gov.
In
Nationally, about 70,000 wildfires in 2008 were attributed to human causes — a thoughtlessly flicked cigarette, a campfire left smoldering, a fallen power line. That's about the same number as 2001, although the figures fluctuate from year to year. Since 2001, the peak was 80,220 wildfires caused by humans in 2006, according to fire center records.
In Southern California, the number of wildfires caused by people was about flat — roughly 4,000 — between 2001 and 2005. It dipped to 3,200 in 2006. Then, those figures increased sharply, to 5,140 in 2007 and 5,208 in 2008, according to the data.
The increase in Southern California stands out. In
Lightning strikes account for just a fraction of all wildfires — about 8,800 across the nation in 2008. In Southern California, the number of wildfires blamed on lightning dropped from 409 in 2006 to 291 in 2007 and 174 last year.
Firefighters this week were extinguishing the last of a now-smoldering wildfire in the Santa Barbara area, which at its peak forced thousands of people to flee their homes. It blackened about 13 square miles. Authorities are trying to identify the person using a power tool that they believe caused the blaze.
Given the large number of wildfires in the state, only a small number lead to criminal or civil cases.
A pipe grinder who accidentally started a 240,000-acre wildfire in Santa Barbara County in 2007 that injured 40 people initially faced felony counts, but those charges were dismissed. He did not have to pay restitution to injured firefighters, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor of negligently setting a fire and was fined $200.
Earlier this week, a man was sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading no contest to arson for setting a series of fires in Los Angeles' sprawling
Ten people who built a campfire were not charged with igniting a wildfire last fall that burned more than 200 homes in Santa Barbara and neighboring
They were charged with misdemeanor trespassing and unlawfully building a campfire. The wildfire seriously injured two people and destroyed rows of multimillion-dollar homes, including actor
"Two things are important for prosecutors to look at: one is the intent ... but on the other hand, there is the harm," says
"It's a judgment call," he says. "No two cases are the same."
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of evacuees were told they could go home Saturday as a blanket of cool, moist air flowing in from the ocean brought a dramatic change, taming the wind-driven wildfire that had burned 80 homes along the outskirts of town.