LOS ANGELES – More than halfway through the year, California is currently on pace to have more fires and burn significantly more acreage than it did last year, with a weekend blaze in the rugged Central California mountains posing the latest challenge for firefighters.
As of mid-July, California has seen more than 220,000 acres burn this year, almost 100,000 acres more than the state has seen on average at this point in the year over the last five years, according to statistics from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
That total doesn’t yet include the acres burned in three fires that started in Southern California on Monday, including the 348-acre Gold fire in San Bernardino County, or the Gifford fire, which ignited Friday in a rural, mountainous stretch across the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo county line and has scorched more than 65,000 acres…