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In metric units, which of these prefixes means billion? Kilo, mega, giga, or tera.
These prefixes are in order of thousand, million, billion, and trillion with giga denoting billion.
But when it comes to wildfires, the term giga is used a little differently. A gigafire denotes a value of 1 million as opposed to 1 billion. The term has been around for a few years now. And it's been applied to several massive blazes throughout history, including one burning in California right now.
It's called the August Complex Fire. It's mostly contained, meaning it's mostly blocked from spreading further, but the damage has already been done. It's part of a highly active fire season across the United States.
This isn't the worse in national history, at least not at this point. The National Interagency Fire Center says since 1983 there have been two years when wildfires burned more than 10 million acres. And 2020 hasn't seen that yet.
It's also possible that decades of fires before 1953 were much worse. But the NIFC says data from them isn't as reliable.
Lightening strikes are responsible for igniting many wildfires. So are people, through everything from campfires to fireworks to arson.
For the more recent blazes, especially the ones in California, some experts and politicians have blamed a warming climate for higher temperatures and more severe droughts, which makes severe fires more likely. Some experts and politicians have blamed bad land management, not doing enough to remove dense forest vegetation which helps fires spread more easily.
