Environment
California's Soberanes Wildfire Is the Most Expensive in U.S. History
The product of an illegal campfire, the active blaze has cost $207 million to battle.
Central California is under a pollution alert for air more normally seen streaming from a pig smoker than in the sky. Multiple fires throughout the state are carbonizing vast amounts of forest, where the vegetation is dry as a wick from hot temperatures, scant precipitation, and years of persistent drought.
Now, one of the largest and longest-lasting of these blazes—the Soberanes Fire in the Los Padres National Forest—has become the most expensive wildfire to battle in U.S. history. Reports the Associated Press: