The California wildfires slowly began last month until they became a large-scale disaster when high winds came over. At least thirty people have been killed “making this outbreak one of the deadliest in state history,” according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Officials who have been searching through the blackened ruins said they’ve found bodies that have been burnt beyond recognition. Thousands of homes have been destroyed and hundreds of people have been evacuated in the San Francisco Bay area, not only because of the fires but because of the air quality as well. The fires have produced as much pollution in two days as all the state’s cars do in a year. As of today, firefighters are still struggling to contain the fire.

Mr. Hugener, the natural disasters teacher at Portsmouth, was interviewed on this topic and stated, “It’s very sad, sad for the people who live there and it’s very unfortunate that this is happening.” He was also asked what his opinion was on what he thinks California should do and he replied with, “ … they should take certain precautions, however they may be expensive, it is needed.” Some of the precautions he mentioned were that bushes around a house’s perimeter should be cut and instead of having wood decking it could be plastic.

Mr. Hugener has not mentioned this topic to his class because his students pick the chapters they want to learn about and forest fires are not one of the chapters he can teach about for two weeks. Although, severe weather is one of the chapters that might be covered in his class, the hurricanes that have been occurring recently have been taking most of the spotlight for that chapter.