Somehow, someway, a fire was born and it waged war on the citizens of California. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed, hundreds missing, and tens dead. The counts for those dead is 31 total, and more to come as authorities are out with their cadaver dogs looking for any remnants of bodies they can find. Whatever lengths they have to go to to find out who the person was, a tattoo, dental records, fingerprints, etc, they will. The fires that have sprung up these past couple days have taken the most lives out of any California Wildfires.

As a total, 190k acres of land has been scorched and destroyed across the state – collectively, that’s about the size of NYC. The flames are moving toward an uncontainable fashion again as winds out of the North are expected to pick up again over the weekend. Since Sunday, there have been 20 blazes in all. The fires seemed to spark out of almost nowhere as they caused a panic amongst the citizens and surprised emergency workers at the rate they carved through Cali.

In Sonoma County, the place that got hit the hardest with a total of 17 deaths and 400 still missing, the authorities didn’t feel as though they did enough to warn the citizens. They didn’t send out text alerts out of fear of causing even more of a panic and the clog of roadways. If you think about it, it makes sense. While it sounds horrible, if people are sitting on the highway, they are stranded if the fire encloses on them, whereas if they’re at their homes, they at least have a chance to get away. 1,100 people have been counted as missing with 745 safe and 400 still missing. Some of these may have not been reported due to lack of power and being detached.

A surprise to many, the flames had somehow managed to do obscure things, such as lodging a garage door on top of a streetlight. These fires are prime examples why fire is not child’s play – it is not a toy. Douse your cigarettes, discard your trash responsibly, and make sure to keep any fire you may be using contained. A simple spark or one cigarette can cause something as devastating as this – take care with flames.