My Quartz colleague reported that he could smell the fire in Oakland, where he lives and which is more than 30 miles south of the the southernmost wildfire.

This could be a harbinger of things to come. According to a 2015 study, thanks to warmer and drier summers driven by global climate change, the downslope winds that led to the current situation are going to become more frequent and are likely to cause fires across even bigger areas in California in the future.

Last month, I spent two weeks in and around the Bay Area, and I was amazed by the sheer range of nature’s beauty on offer: from watching whales in Monterey Bay to hiking in snow near Lake Tahoe. The downside is that Californians have to contend with the threat of an amazing range of nature’s fury.

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