Evidence of Political Impact on California Fires in 2003, 2017-2018, and 2020

Leo Goldstein

No tx5kp, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: ● California fires spiked in 2003, 2017-2018, and 2020 - the extreme fire years (EFY). ● Each of these years has significantly exceeded the rest in the combined number and area of fires and the number of destroyed structures. ● In 2018, fires destroyed 19 times more buildings than in a detrended average non-EFY year. ● These anomalies could not be attributed to natural causes and regular human activity. ● The only explanation for this EFY phenomenon is well-organized, politically motivated malicious activity. Abstract This paper analyzes official statistical data on California wildfires and their consequences as the area burnt and structures destroyed for the 36 full years, 1989-2024. 2003, 2017-2018, and 2020 stand out as California Extreme Fire Years (EFY). 2018 was the most severe one. Fires destroyed 22,868 structures, 19 times the detrended average. The ratio was 8.8 to 9.5 in other EFYs. This paper shows that this cannot be explained by natural factors or statistical variability. The only explanation is politically motivated malicious activity, including arson and/or sabotaging firefighting.

Date: 2025-01-21
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/678fe7b886507d209b34f60c/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:tx5kp

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/tx5kp

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().