@RoryAlsop Except for fires and amazing amounts of pollen, air quality is always good where I live.

California's climate has always had some fires naturally, but climate change has really increased them.

Yeah california just seems super dry - you can't really engineer a landscape with effective fire breaks

Cos sparks and embers just fly for miles.

If only there was more water.

Then again reservioirs up the top of hills wiould just evapourate

@Criggie NorCal is normally actually wet, but there's been years of drought lately.

I literally rode my bike into rainforest earlier today.

Oh man that was disgusting... I rode home in a light shower, so wearing my new waterproof rainjacket. It stopped and dried out mostly, but I had no other top so rode on with the zip 95% open . At home I stood up and out my sleeve cuffs came a squirt of sweat which had pooled in the lower elbow. Definitely a liquid-proof raincoat!

No photos thankfully :)

@CristianCiupitu certainly a bit rainier than California, yes. And colder than California, but definitely not cold. It doesn't get much below freezing.

Well, not often, anyway

California is experiencing the result of several things colliding uncomfortably. First, they had a very wet year last year which resulted in rapid new growth in many areas. Then, they had an incredibly dry, hot summer this year, which properly seasoned all that new growth. Finally, many areas have rules and regulations regarding land clearing and fire mitigation/prevention, however, these things are not as regularly or uniformly enforced as stuff like earthquake building codes.

Lastly California is ridiculously populated and a very small amount of fire has a greater chance of impacting a very large amount of people.

@DeletedUser Bit more than that, even... (1) A lot of big trees (like literally the biggest trees in the world) growing for hundreds of years here. (2) Most of California has experienced severe drought for quite a few years, (3) (your first), a very rainy 2016/2017 rain season (enough to officially end drought in many areas), (4) summer 2017 had multiple major heat waves, (5) and then again 2018 had major heat waves.

Oh, also a bunch of stuff with pine beetles, sudden oak death, etc...

So, many many tons of dead trees.

Then rain and sun really help get you lots of undergrowth in the forested areas and grass in grassy areas, but heat waves dry a lot of it out.

Oh, there's also some areas that get a summer (and fall) wind pattern of hot dry winds some years. With convoluted terrain that can make that worse.

@Rider_X, @RoryAlsop, @Criggie good luck in winning (or not winning) the mod election (which ever applies)!

@gschenk has to be one of the quietest elections I've ever seen.

@freiheit given how California's a bit different to the rest of the US, will they ever seceed from the union? IE, pull a Brexit ?

58 votes cast so far in the election, I wonder how many we'll get total...

whup? I'd be surprised to get double-digits.

I'm guessing it's gonna be something like 150-200 votes at the end.

Then again I have voted in elections for other sites where I don't have a major input.