2020 was the state’s worst wildfire season on record. By the end of it, the flames had killed 31 people, destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 buildings and burned a staggering 4.1m acres. “There’s almost no statistic or dimension of this fire season 2020 in California that wasn’t astonishing or horrifying,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “Everything about this year has been kind of unusual or extraordinary.”