Southern California braces for another September heat wave and record wildfires The parched region is suffering from the effects of climate change
If only it was that simple on this parched island of grass and sand.
If only the drought didn’t have a human face to it.
If only there was a way to bring the rain.
“I wish I could have this thing stopped,” said Ken Schmack, who fled his family ranch near San Andreas, Calif., as flames spread across the hills. “I don’t want my children to grow up the way I did.”
The Schmack family ranch burned to the ground, as did the neighboring ranch owned by Jerry Wood, a former U.S. senator who has been missing since June 28, when his truck disappeared from Highway 78 near Turlock, Calif.
The families of the missing have been searching for clues about what became of them.
“It’s been like a search for the Holy Grail,” said Ed Marotta, founder of the nonprofit Missing Persons Resource Center. “The case of missing people and ranch fires are a perfect match.”
The two ranches and two highways burned in a way that foreshadowed things to come in California.
Flames raced across some ranches and scorched others, making it look like an active wildfire had come to life and begun burning across the landscape — a type of fire that would soon sweep through the state.
The Schmack fire was an inferno that was both the largest in Southern California history and one that threatened thousands of people on both the east and west coasts.
The fire destroyed more than 3,200 square miles of the region’s landscape. Its scorching heat destroyed more than 2,000 homes and forced tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes in evacuation orders.
By the time the fire was contained Saturday afternoon, it had burned down the town of Cuyama, killed nine people, destroyed more than 500 homes and destroyed more than 300 aircraft, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The blaze had
