Talk:2020 Western United States wildfire season

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Let's work together[edit]

@Destroyeraa: Hey man, do you think you could help me out the next few hours in adding a lot of material to this page? There is SO much news & info coming out about these fires every hour, every minute, and I feel like it's essential that we add stuff to this page just as news comes, as it will be much harder later on to find the same articles. We can work together on this through discussion, and I would greatly appreciate it. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 21:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@EagerBeaverPJ: I’m sorry, I am busy up to 8:00 EDT today (5:00 pm PDT). Sorry I didn’t work on the page so much, but I’ll work more on it tonight and maybe through the weekend. Good work on the article. ~ Destroyeraa🌀 22:03, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa: Oh, that's totally fine. I also don't think I'll be making that many edits till later tonight. But if you could also come later tonight to help edit, that would be nice :) EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 01:14, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EagerBeaverPJ: Sorry, I was supposed to work on this, but recently I had a very heated debate about my position on Wikipedia. Long story short - it didn't go well. See this. Also, I just received a GA review on Hurricane Dolores (2015) by Hurricanehink, so I had to work on that. ~ Destroyeraa🌀 01:18, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa: Ok ok, so it seems like you're pretty busy right now. That's understandable. But if you happen to be become less busy and can come any time today or tomorrow, that would really help. Lol I came here to edit right now but my brain's not really working, so I guess I will have to do something else and come back later. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 04:25, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm going to contact some more editors to allow for easier and faster communication, and to help make more progress. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 04:30, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This page comes off as partisan -- between the man-induced climate change (I've read otherwise), and the claim that Barr/Trump were fueling Antifa rumors.146.115.129.2 (talk) 20:27, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Table[edit]

@EagerBeaverPJ: I'd have to agree with your note. I'd say criteria should be minimum 50000+ Acres and/or ~50 structures destroyed (rather than ~20 structures on the california page) for California, Oregon, and Washington. If we are adding all these other states listed at the start of the article, then minimum 10000+ acres and/or ~20 structures destroyed for Idaho and Montana. All other states are fine. Luofbi (talk) 14:15, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Luofbi: Actually on second thought, I'm not too sure, because in California there have been some significant fires below 50,000 acres, such as the Willow Fire in Yuba County which was only 1,311 acres on September 10th but resulted in the evacuation of 3,000, or the one sparked at a gender-reveal party in San Bernardino. (See the "California" section in http://web.archive.org/web/20200910215029/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/the-west-coast-wildfire-season-is-getting-worse.html) So I am not too sure right now. But this does not close the issue, because one could also say that such wildfires happen all the time and do not have to be mentioned in a separate article. So I would say - don't remove anything, just leave it for now as we can still talk about them in the article, but through further discussion and communication we will be able to decide later on exactly which fires to include and not to include on this page. Thanks, EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 18:46, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EagerBeaverPJ: I recognize that some other fire below 50000 acres and/or 50 structures destroyed are significant, maybe extra criteria can be agreed on and added, I just don't think it's necessary to add a bunch of unnotable 1000 acre-ish fires (particularly Idaho, Montana, and Arizona) I'd agree with leaving it for now. The other fire you're referencing is the El Dorado Fire btw. Luofbi (talk) 01:42, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your page move[edit]

@LightandDark2000: Hey there, I noticed you renamed this page to "Summer 2020 Western United States wildfires". I just wanted to let you know that I undid your edit, and the reason was because, even though I may not have stated this clearly enough, I aimed to have this page only talk about wildfires that had a significant impact on the Western United States in September 2020, like those in Oregon and Washington, and even regardless of whether they began in September or not, like the August Complex fire and the North Complex, which began in August but exploded in September, causing lot of destruction. If you have any concerns about this you should message me here. I don't think "Summer 2020 Western United States wildfires" would be a good name because 2020 California wildfires already covers all that, and I'm not including the August lightning fires on this page, the ones that did not impact California much in September. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 00:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it was a bit confusing. Maybe we should drop more of the pre-September fires from the list, since that will only add to the confusion. The major ones that burned into September can be kept, but the others from August and earlier should be removed. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 00:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@LightandDark2000: I'll check again, but I'm pretty sure none of those fires are on this page. Like I don't think any of the LNU, SCU, and CZU are mentioned on this page, for example. If there are still any discrepancies and confusions I will continue to make necessary revisions. Thanks, EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 01:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok ok[edit]

@67.164.37.103: Ok man, so it seems you have added an *Overwhelming* amount of information to this page. I am pretty much in a state of shock, ttyl, and more so of how a new IP user was able to do it. It's hard to tell whether it was just a copy-paste or if you wrote all that yourself, but if you did I would be amazed. Well, it seems like most of your additions are useful, so TYSM for that, but we've definitely got a lot to talk about of what to include and what not, so stay tuned. Honestly, I've been waiting so many days for people to make some good additions both to this page and this other one, so an edit like this is like the God coming from the Heavens. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 09:49, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No sweat! Not gonna lie - some of it was copypasta from related pages, but I did do some basic quality control on what got added, and where. I also added some new sources I looked up, in addition to the (admittedly many) sources already attached to the translocated sections, to fortify statements. Not sure what shouldn't have been included, but feel free to message my associated IP page.
Normally, I would use my account, but I haven't used it for a decade, and to be honest, I've forgotten the password. And the name. 67.164.37.103 (talk) 10:49, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Naming predicament[edit]

The name "September 2020 Western United States wildfires" has a few problems, in my opinion. First, since this accounts for only one month out of the season, it implies that there are, or will be similarly-named articles for the months preceding, or ahead of this one (October 2020 Western US... etc.). The specificity and length of this title is unnecessary, and can be avoided if we removed the "September", and just covered the whole fire season instead. Nobody knows if September will be the peak of the fires or not, and I am positive that more significant events will follow in the coming months. Not to mention that the months before September were important, too. At this point, it's either take the work to make an article for each month, or rename this one and save the hassle. I really don't see the reason to make this so specific, when all of the major wildfire events of the year can be condensed into a singular article. Let's talk about this, I want to hear your perspectives. GyozaDumpling (talk) 11:18, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the first opinion, that the name of the article is problematic as it is too specific. I agree that a more generic title for the article would be more appropriate as it would be create more work for every new fire that began each month. Jurisdicta (talk) 04:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Title[edit]

Hi wikipedians,

  • Title of this article needs change. If you use September in the title, what about the California wildfires that started in August and still burning? Similar comment as GyozaDumpling.
  • Do not merge from 2020 California wildfires. If you combine several states in one table, the table becomes too large and difficult to insert content.
  • Since there are many fires in the western United States, I recommend keeping the other article titles as listed separate for for each states, such as 2020 California wildfires, etc.

My comments for now. SWP13 (talk) 11:48, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@GyozaDumpling and SWP13: Ok I'm not sure if I've already explained this earlier, but hopefully after reading this message you and other people will be able to understand once and for all why this page is named the way it is. I'm not sure if you guys are wildfire experts or if you guys have been tracking the wildfires on the news recently, but if you have, you all may know that this week the wildfires have been insane and unprecedented, especially in California, Oregon, and Washington. Several towns destroyed. A million+ acres burned this week, with sometimes hundreds of thousands acres in just 1-2 days. Dozens killed. So that's why I think this wildfire event satisfies the conditions of WP:NOTE, and it deserves its own page, thus the name "September 2020 Western US wildfires". Reply if you have any other questions. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 21:50, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@EagerBeaverPJ: We're not even half way through September yet. Yes, September has seen explosive growth of fires, but we have no idea what the future months hold. There is uncertainty, and this preemptive naming can pose future problems. Therefore, we must future-proof it. It is possible to compact this year's fire activity into this article; we don't have to cover everything in detail, the individual state articles are already doing that. Every fire season has a peak, some more prominent than the others. They do not have individual articles for said peaks, and this should not be an exception. Trust me, October will bring hell. If you don't want to rename, prepare to make another article, including one for August because that month was pivotal as well. GyozaDumpling (talk) 22:27, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The notability is not in question; the title is. Between the individual fire pages, the pages by state, and this, there's three levels of detail already. Probably this is too many already, but in any case there is certainly no need to divide the subject chronologically to boot. Half the prose in the article already predates September anyway. Better to rename it "2020 Western United States wildfires" and be done--there's probably a case to be made that you could even remove "western," too, since there's no eastern fires to disambiguate from. The Wicked Twisted Road (talk) 22:53, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@GyozaDumpling and The Wicked Twisted Road: I don't even know what you guys are talking about. It's been a convention of naming articles about impactful fire events by the month in which they occurred, like October 2007 California wildfires or December 2017 Southern California wildfires. Since here we have a major fire event that started in the beginning of September and is still ongoing throughout the Western US right now, we are calling this page "September 2020 Western US wildfires". The fires don't have to continue throughout the whole month for that. And yeah, there are already general pages existing for the complete wildfire season every year in California, like 2020 California wildfires or 2019 California wildfires. There we talk about the whole season, not any specific month. Last but not least, if by the August fires you mean the series of wildfires that started by lightning in California, yeah there is a page for that also: August 2020 California lightning wildfires. (You should come help edit that if you can.) So I hope this clears confusion. There's a difference between wildfires that occur here and there all the time and a major impactful wildfire event. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 23:00, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EagerBeaverPJ: Actually, we select the dates in the article titles based mainly on 1.) When the fires ignited and 2.) When the fires were predominantly active. For the October 2007 California wildfires, I could potentially make a case for renaming it to "October–November 2007 California wildfires", because many of the major fires in that series persisted into the month of November. But no new fires in that group started in November, and since we want to keep article titles as concise as possible, we may as well leave it at its current title (and the fires that did last into November didn't persist beyond the middle of the month). Same reasoning for the December 2017 article. This article is different, though. Yes, the scope is on the major fires in September 2020, but a handful of those fires actually started all the way back in August (and maybe one or two in July), so the current date tag in this article already deviates from the established norms. But I actually haven't seen an article set up like this one before (a focus on fires in one month that includes fires that began in a previous month), so I'm not exactly sure how to proceed from here, as it's a novel case. But I do feel that the time frame in the title should be modified, to avoid confusing our readers. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 22:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And also, btw, there's no page for June 2020 fires or July 2020 fires because even though fires did occur in those months, the fires weren't all part of one major event, and therefore not notable enough to have a page for. 71.204.181.144 (talk) 23:07, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@EagerBeaverPJ: All of those examples are localized in a single state. Their naming scheme is justifiable because they're generally isolated events. The uptick in fires were observing is nationwide. Also, the August 2020 California lightning wildfires does not count, because this article we are debating covers the West, not just California. In order to maintain continuity, "(month) 2020 Western United States wildfires" articles would have to be made. Why can't we just divide this article into sections for each month? This makes no sense. We need to make a poll for this. GyozaDumpling (talk) 23:16, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The fire event didn't start at the beginning of September. Much of the article's content is taken up by events before that; the date is an arbitrary dividing line. In fact this whole mess of articles is a criss-crossing of arbitrary dividing lines that splinter content for no good reason at all. It seems to me that the logical structure for the topic would be to use "2020 Western United States wildfires" as the broadest overview article on the subject, followed by the "2020 <state> wildfires," and then individual fire articles, if needed. The chronological division is unwarranted without vastly more content. The Wicked Twisted Road (talk) 00:09, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

>>>FYI. I have been following the wildfires for California from PRIMARY and Government sources. SWP13 (talk) 14:34, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

add table of united states year-to-date statistics?[edit]

i added a table of United States Year-to-Date Statistics to article 2020 wildfire season. should it be added for context to this article too? --Johnfreez (talk) 11:53, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the downside of this addition as it seems appropriate given the topic of this article. Jurisdicta (talk) 04:49, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for the comment. the table has been added. it might make sense for this article to expand in time and/or space, e.g. 2020 Western United States wildfires, 2020 United States wildfires, or 2020 North American wildfires. --Johnfreez (talk) 10:36, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree that expansion to time and space for the article would be prudent as it seems likely we could get more wildfires and a more broad title would be a better way to organize the article. Your suggestions of {{2020 United States wildfires]] or 2020 North American wildfires seem to be more inclusive. Jurisdicta (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Structure[edit]

I recommend using structure according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wildfire. Add subsections Effects/Impacts and Fatalities. Thanks, SWP13 (talk) 14:41, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

thanks SWP13. for reference, Wikipedia:WikiProject Wildfire#Participants lists two Wikipedia:Featured articles:
--Johnfreez (talk) 15:51, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnfreez and SWP13: Yes, that's actually a good idea. I already added an "Impacts" section to this page in which we can add material related to all the latest news coming out right now about the fires. Unfortunately, however, nobody seems to be contributing anything to that section, even though I left a message there saying it would be a good idea if we filled that section up asap. While I'm planning to contribute to that section, I'm already dealing with a lot of work in real life and the job of this page move. So do you think you guys could help out with that? We can share info about different news here. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 21:38, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnfreez and SWP13: Ok there's something I don't really understand about this article's structure. In the "Winds blow and fires grow" section there are descriptions about the impacts of the fires - about the towns destroyed and all the houses destroyed in those towns. But should those descriptions stay there or should they be moved to the "Impacts" section? Or should they be mentioned in both places? It doesn't really make sense and I'm confused. It's preventing me from making progress to this article because I don't know where to add new stuff and I don't want to put it in the wrong section. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

dear EagerBeaverPJ, thanks for your work. to your questions, it depends, and in this case i think both places. for the purposes of flow and clarity, it's okay to repeat information in different sections, sometimes in less and sometimes in more detail. everything (covered in brief) in the lead(ing paragraph) of the article should be covered in detail in the sections (of sometimes overlapping content) of the body. think of each section as it's own-little-article, connected smoothly with adjacent sections, and taking it's que from the lead. the whole thing should flow like a bow. --Johnfreez (talk) 07:37, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

>>>Thanks to Wikipedia users who are actively updating. For Effects/Impacts subsection, in addition to Poor/unhealthy/hazardous air quality, perhaps include evacuation orders, # of structures damaged with $loss. Theses are IMMEDIATE or DIRECT Imacts. Not sure if injuries should go in this subsection.SWP13 (talk) 16:05, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnfreez: Ok, thanks for the clarification! Based on what you said, I'll probably choose to keep the brief description of the aftermath in the "Winds blow and fires grow section" the way it is, while elaborating much more in detail about the aftermath in the "Impacts" section. Also @SWP13:, thanks for the advice - I think evacuation orders already has its own section, but I'm definitely planning to include destruction and cost in "Impacts". I'll try to do it, however, if you could help me out on all this, that would be really nice. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 18:39, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Models to consider[edit]

A lot of work went into the page for the California camp fire in 2018. It's worth revisiting that page, and perhaps both consolidating some of the general content there on forest conditions, and also cleaning up that page with the result of 2 years of hindsight. Mmcdougall (talk) 15:56, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 14 September 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved per WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure) --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 02:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

September 2020 Western United States wildfires → 2020 Western United States wildfires – I've already detailed my rationale for renaming this page. This is for reaching consensus, and determining the future name (out of the many proposed). GyozaDumpling (talk) 16:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

  • Strongly support Comment. - This name is far too specific for the broad topic it covers, and has the potential to create future problems. I propose the name "2020 Western United States wildfires". GyozaDumpling (talk) 16:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Ok I don't know what to say exactly. You guys think this is an arbitrary article and I can understand that, yet that is not a valid argument. I don't know if you guys have been watching any news at all, but if you go check right now you would see that there are hundreds of articles (pretty much all of the news) that talk about all the fires in the 3 states together (I can list at least 10 of them below here); even SCIENTISTS have been studying them together as part of one major event. And just to clarify, even though the fires have different origin times, most of their activity occurred in September which is why we're including all these fires on this page. I'm still having active conversations with other users about exactly which fires to include and not to include on this page, but for now it's not too bad. And additionally, I don't know if you guys are aware but this article has already been nominated and actually appears in the Wikipedia ITN section right now, which means that most users pretty much agree with the with the aspects of this article, like how it is a September event as this week the wildfires killed 33 people, not in the whole year. I don't know where in the world you guys are exactly. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 17:20, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - i agree that both --september-- and --western-- and even --united states-- are terms too specific. i propose 2020 North American wildfires, as areas biogeographically north and south of the united states also periodically burn. for instance,
but i could live with 2020 United States wildfires. --Johnfreez (talk) 17:28, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
update: i could also live with 2020 Western United States wildfires, though in the future i think it makes sense to expand articles like the 2020 wildfire season, and create articles not only on a per-season basis along political boundaries, but also according to ecological patterns: biogeographical realm, biome, fire ecology, precipitation, thunderstorm, climate, wind, et cetera. regardless of borders, wind blows, rain falls, lightnings strike, and forest burns. --Johnfreez (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnfreez: That's not what this article was meant to be about. If people filled this article up with irrelevant BS the one day I was busy out from Wikipedia, then it's not my fault, but that's not what I intended. I intended this article to be specifically about September 2020 Western United States wildfires. Here are 10 articles below to show exactly what topic I was aiming to include:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/11/western-wildfires-climate-change/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/wildfires-us-california-oregon-washington-latest-death-toll
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/14/western-fires-35-dead-air-quality-may-not-improve-until-october/5790205002/
http://web.archive.org/web/20200914175436/https://news.google.com/topstories?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqOQgKIjNDQklTSURvSmMzUnZjbmt0TXpZd1NoTUtFUWpENWN2ZmtJQU1FVUJLdEVGMVRhTTJLQUFQAQ?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
If you've been watching the news recently you would know what I'm talking about.
EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 17:49, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
dear EagerBeaverPJ, thanks for the additional sources, as well as you work on an article that's, as you said, made it to the front page. the article intended from it's beginning to transcend spacial (california, oregon, washington) and temporal (initially the article was titled by Destroyeraa "August–September 2020 Western United States wildfires") boundaries, did it not? renaming the page takes another step in this direction. if not, then an additional article ought to be created. --Johnfreez (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EagerBeaverPJ:
  • While I applaud it, your article being on the ITN part of the front page doesn't justify its name. They only picked it because it's the only article that covers the entire Western region, as opposed to individual states. It was the only viable option, and does not mean that the admin, nor "most users" agreed with the name.
  • Yes, this appears to be the peak of the season. However, WE DO NOT KNOW what the future holds. In October, fires could be extinguished, or have destroyed the entire state of California. Restricting this article to September marginalizes everything else; it's like sectioning off the peak of a (incomplete) bell curve.
  • Yes, the majority of activity is occurring in the West/the 3 states. We can obviously mention this in the lead section: "The 2020 North American wildfires are a series of major wildfire events currently active primarily throughout the Western United States, especially the states of...", for example. This isn't hard to do. We can even mention that September was the peak.
  • News articles published in September doesn't support the title. I can give you hundreds of news articles from August talking about the same horrific wildfires burning in the West as well.
  • Finally: If September is so much more distinguishable and significant than the rest of the season, then the months before and after September are inferior in comparison. Therefore, because of their minuscule importance, can be incorporated into the same article along with September no problemo. GyozaDumpling (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@GyozaDumpling: Why do you want to change the title to 2020 North American wildfires? Isn't 2020 United States wildfires a better title since nearly all of the fires are in the US (including Alaska)? ~ Destroyeraa🌀 19:27, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa: I added the renaming template with no specific new name, so we could decide one here. Someone else changed it. My current stance is [2020 United States wildfires]].


@GyozaDumpling and Johnfreez: I don't really understand what your guys's point is; all I can understand is that you are intending this article to go beyond the scope of September 2020 Western US wildfires to include fires from THROUGHOUT 2020 and across the WHOLE USA, even from Northeast, Southeast, etc. And then you and other people want to change what this article was meant to be originally by renaming it into something random like 2020 United States wildfires or 2020 North American wildfires. But there are two MAJOR problems with all this hullaballoo.
1) I am not aware of, and I don't think there ever has been any custom of having pages talk about yearly wildfires for a big region, like the whole US or the whole Western US, so it makes no sense why we should be having a page about 2020 United States wildfires or 2020 Western United States wildfires if there was never a page about 2019 United States wildfires or 2019 Western United States wildfires, or even for 2018, 2017, etc.
2) The reason this article was created and named September 2020 Western United States wildfires is because this week, as I have proven with the sources I listed and if you have been watching the news, you would know now that THIS WEEK, terrible wildfires have swept across the West (i.e. California, Oregon, and Washington), burning thousands of acres, destroying towns, and killing 33 so far. This article was intended to talk about THOSE fires and their effects, not any others. If people filled up this page with stuff irrelevant to that, it's not my fault, as I've not had that much time to keep track of this page. But now you and everyone else is trying to change it into something it's not.
@Destroyeraa: Please read my above comment also. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 19:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EagerBeaverPJ: You're talking about the rename as if sooo much more material would need to be added, and that's not the case. The vast majority of fires are happening in the West, with barely anything in the other regions you mentioned. Responding to your contentions:
1) There HAVE been instances of wildfire seasons for big regions, such as the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season. 46 MILLION acres, and even they had the sense not to divide it into month. The only reason we don't see similar naming for US articles is because we've never had anything this monumental in many decades. You'll only find such articles named after months because they are either singular events, or because that specific month held, like, 90% of the total season's activity. We are not seeing that with 2020.
2) I'm gonna put this as bluntly as possible: It doesn't matter what you intended this article to be when you created it. This isn't a dictatorship. Your article being on the front page doesn't justify its naming, either. They only chose it because it's the only article that covers the Western region as opposed to individual states. It doesn't mean that they, or "most users" agreed with the naming.
I cannot emphasize this enough: renaming this article to include the year's events doesn't mean we'll have to be adding a huge amount of info. We already have the bulk of what's needed. Since the months before and after September are less important, therefore requiring less space, we should have no problem adding those to the article. GyozaDumpling (talk) 19:53, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@GyozaDumpling: Omg that's the whole point lmao. You're saying that not many fires happened outside of the West, so why the heck are we even going to bother talking about them when the main fire event happened in the West? What's wrong with only talking about West fires and having the name "Western United States" in the title?
Ok two things here with what you said: 1) The size of the article is totally not my problem at all 100%. In fact, the opposite of what you said is true, that I would actually LOVE it if the article was big and detailed. My problem is the RELEVANCE of the material in the article and about what concepts we should be talking about and what not to talk. 2) I'm not sure if you have knowledge about California fire seasons, especially about this year's (2020) fire season, but if you did you would know that actually NOT ALL the months of the CA fire season were active this year. Till mid-August, i.e. throughout June and July 2020, it was actually a pretty normal, average fire season. Then on August 16th those terrible lightning storms hit, which started the first round of the massive Cal fires, for which there is already the page August 2020 California lightning wildfires. Those fires burned about 1.5 million acres in much of Northern and Central California from August 16 to Sept. 5. Sadly, people are barely contributing to that page, even though there is still a lot to add to that. Now, in the first week of September, destructive wildfires have struck again, this time across all the Pacific states, CA, OR, and WA. While @LightandDark2000: did have a point that the way the date given in the title as "September 2020" is unusual since some of the wildfires actually started before Sept., that can be debated separately. (Even though, contrary to what you said, September HAS IN FACT been the peak month for wildfires in California; I would say about 40% of the activity occurred in August and about 55-60% in Sept.) But there is no reason whatsover that "Western United States" should not a part of the title, since wildfires outside these states are not and should not be relevant to this page. (Talking about wildfires by a region is not unusual at all, like how there is a page called 2016 Southeastern United States wildfires).
Additionally, I checked out the Australian wildfire page, and there is a big difference. Wildfires were occurring and were above average throughout ALL OF AUSTRALIA, here simply we have above-average wildfires in the West, (maybe Colorado), but nowhere else. So there's basically no need to talk about those places. Last but not least, there is also no reason why we should worry at all about October wildfires. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of hypothetical events, and if terrible wildfires do occur in October also we will either create a new article or expand this article accordingly. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 06:47, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, sorry for the all caps in certain phrases. I'm not angry or anything, I was just trying to stress certain points/phrases lol. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 07:04, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Ok, I see what the problem is. You guys have been filling the page up with info irrelevant to the topic of September 2020 Western US wildfires for the past two days, so that's why now you want to rename it. I think the original culprit was this IP user, while I am happy with the fact that he expanded this article a lot, some of the stuff he added was not relevant. And you guys have been expanding off of that now. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 19:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move to 2020 Western United States wildfires. A title change will help frame this article in a historical context. I've been reading (and lightly revising) the California Camp Fire page. I recommend that others also visit that page, and make minor improvements; your edits to the 2018 fire page might help frame your thinking around how to structure this page.
I think we need to consider what the purpose of this article is as opposed to all the others. As far as I know nobody has provided a reason why we need an article about September, specifically. As I understand it the fire activity in September is part of a continuum of fire weather and fire starts beginning in July–August. However I think it would be useful to have a summary article of the 2020 wildfire season in the western US as a whole, as it allows for discussion of broader region-wide causes and effects that are not specific to any one of the above-mentioned articles. So I support removing "September" from the title. 79.110.53.8 (talk) 20:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's my take: Weak Support for moving to 2020 Western United States wildfires or Summer 2020 Western United States wildfires. Strongly Oppose moving to the current, proposed title and any other title that is more general than the ones I suggested. Neutral on the current target, Strongly Oppose moving to other more general titles. Renaming the time scope to 2020 would effectively make this article a de facto combined wildfire season article for each of the Western U.S. states. Since I'm not sure if this article was meant to have such as wide scope (including wildfires that started before August 2020), I cannot throw my full support behind this title. I am currently leaning towards the second option I proposed here, as it fits the timeline of the starting dates of most of the current active fires that burned into September and also allows more room for expansion on other major fires that started this summer, especially since many of the major fires that are burning this month (and the main focus of this article) actually started back in August. But since I'm not sure if the article was intended to be that broad (specifically, covering major fires that broke out earlier during the summer before the August 2020 lightning storms and the September heatwaves), I'm unwilling to push for this option at the moment. (Alternatively, we could rename this article to "August–September 2020 Western United States wildfires", but that would require terminating the inclusion of new fires at the end of this month.) As for the current proposal and any other more general titles, they are all bad ideas. Expanding this article to include the entire scope of the United States would require yet another expansion, and I don't think that this was the original intent of this article. Also, while I can see some basis for making this article a broader coverage of the 2020 wildfire seasons in the Western States, I think that this is a bit too general and probably beyond the original intended scope of this article, as it would shift the focus away from the current August–September fires that have caused so much damage this month. But, ultimately, it's up to those who crafted this article to decided on the scope, as that will determine which of the proposed titles (if any) are viable options for a potential renaming. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Modified my vote a bit to match the current renaming target. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - The suggested name sounds a little too general and can easily cover every wildfire that's happened this year in the Western United States, even those that aren't a part of this wildfire epidemic. Love of Corey (talk) 23:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support I feel that the article is too specific as it specifies a certain month. As it has been previously mentioned, there are already good articles that this article could fall under without being duplicative and create a central location for information. An example would be 2020 Western United States wildfires, While I understand the counter-argument, it seems to be more efficient and effective to have broader topics that would encompass all these wildfires in the Western United States. It seems silly to have a new article for a wildfire that starts on October 1 even if it is in the same geographic region of other fires that began on September 30th. Jurisdicta (talk) 23:36, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support, too. Many fires started in August and many will continue well into the fall, as common in the fire season. If we focus only on September, this will be extremely confusing. And we need a summarizing article for the whole (western) US wildfire season that provides readers with the possibility to find all the relevant sub-articles easily. That's missing now, we only have the articles about the wildfire season in different states, but nothing that the whole season. Andol (talk) 23:41, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unpopular opinion Let's wait a month. If the fires last well into October, then the "Summer" bit can definitely be removed. If more mainstream citations can be gathered to support the majority of the September wildfires in the Western United States stemming from one event (which they may well be), then it can probably split into two articles, "2020 Fire Season in the Western United States" detailing the season as a whole, and this article, concerning the originating event and consequences in particular. Otherwise, this pretty much feels like the definitive 2020 wildfire season article. ~67.164.37.103 (67.164.37.103
  • Strongly support, but I think it may still be there on October. Evan0512 (talk) 03:19, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for moving to 2020 Western United States wildfires; that is the topic people are looking for, and as is stated above, some fires started in August, and possibly could reach into October. WestCD (talk) 04:10, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per OP's rationale and is more or less in line with how 2019–20 Australian bushfire season was named. Given that the science shows that the amount of wildfires are expected to increase and be just as devastating (if not more so) in the future, I think an RfC on the ideal article naming conventions for wildfires may be useful for the future, but that's a topic that's probably better discussed elsewhere. OhKayeSierra (talk) 04:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "2020 Western United States wildfires". Along with other reasons discussed above, many of these fires ignited in August and others are likely to still be burning in October, so calling them September fires is potentially misleading. (t · c) buidhe 04:52, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Possibly move it to 2020 United States wildfire season in a similar title to the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season. JMonkey2006 (talk) 07:25, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support dropping the September (so 2020 Western United States wildfires) and have this as the overarching article. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:16, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support move and support early closure per WP:SNOW. I don't see any rebuttals to the support arguments that we should widen the scope of this page by generalizing the name, and I don't expect any to be coming unless someone plans on making pages for July and August to complete the series. No, it's far better the just have one page on this wildfire season. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:39, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removing September from the title. As a resident of Napa County, California, I am well aware that severe fires have been been burning in Northern California since mid-August because I have been breathing the smoke since then. As for Oregon, 2020 Oregon wildfires says that nine significant fires started in that state in August. As for October, I do not have a crystal ball but based on past history and current conditions, it is highly likely that the fires will continue into that month. As for expanding the article to include all of North America, I oppose that. The governments of Canada and Mexico respond to similar fires with completely different government agencies, and to the best of my knowledge, there are no major wildfires burning in the Eastern United States at this time. I am unaware of reliable sources running stories that attempt to cover wildfires in all of North America as a discrete topic. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:20, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for reasons stated above by Johnfreez (September is too specific), 79.110.53.8 ("As far as I know nobody has provided a reason why we need an article about September, specifically"), Jurisdicta (It seems silly to have a new article for a wildfire that starts on October 1 even if it is in the same geographic region of other fires that began on September 30th), Andol (we only have the articles about the wildfire season in different states, but nothing that the whole season), WestCD (some fires started in August, and possibly could reach into October) Chrisclear (talk) 02:03, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Yeah, there were fires in June and July and mainly August too. ~ Destroyeraa🌀 19:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Ok actually you know what guys I'm going to be creating a new section for this discussion because this one is literally exploding, and it's not going to help us at all. It's literally a bunch of people giving their own separate opinions, and in the end we are just going to make a decision about this move based on what majority decides, but without any understanding whatsoever. People who may support the move may do it based on limited knowledge, and so may also people who oppose the move. So I believe it is necessary to have a new section to clearly listen to everyone's views, have a good discussion, and gain full knowledge before making a page move. We can still put the final decision in this section. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stay tuned guys, a new section will come in a little while. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 18:54, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Campaign for images[edit]

Hi, there's this campaign here in case anyone has photos they want to share, very good way for newbies to contribute. One of the photos uploaded from this campaign is used in the article now: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaign:2020_California_Wildfires Victor Grigas (talk) 19:50, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

it would be great to have some images of firefighters...
...especially incarcerated firefighters, to show the class character of emergency responses. --Johnfreez (talk) 21:43, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


look here https://www.dvidshub.net/ Victor Grigas (talk) 00:02, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Smaze[edit]

"Choking air from Western fires just won't ease up."

— It's bad in SW Idaho, too. – Sca (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bad subsection title[edit]

@Johnfreez: Hey I noticed you added a subsection title called "Scorched earth, buildings, and bodies". However, I'm not sure if I really like the title because in my opinion it sounds a bit inappropriate and insensitive, especially when you say "scorched bodies". I recommend changing it into something simple as just "Devastation". I don't know about you, and I'm not really sure myself, but that's just kinda how I feel about it. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 22:02, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Scorched earth" was also particularly misleading during peacetime. Changed to "Burning". Seems to cover scorching, melting, flaming, blistering and full-out incineration of people, places and things. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:40, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Devastation" is nice and simple, but probably too vague, as the air quality and habitat loss impacts could also be seen as devastating to wild animals, those with respiratory problems or the people who love either group. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:53, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
the phrase is clear and evocative. <<inappropriate and insensitive>>?, i empathize. as InedibleHulk points out, the first two words it seems stem from military policy. change as you see fit. scalded, torched, ignited, or inflamed might do. apparently the proto-indo-european for fire is "*engni and *ingni" (e.g. sanskrit, अग्नि (agní); latin, ignis; english, ignition; et cetera). --Johnfreez (talk) 09:46, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We could call it "Fire". Pretty evocative word itself, but can evoke a wider range of emotion; we want to appeal to those reading with hope, despair and/or rage, rather than use incendiary language as porno for pyros in particular. It steams, it broils, but most importantly, it coldly and accurately describes the most impactful part of these events (for those who find feelings inappropriate in education). InedibleHulk (talk) 10:03, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@InedibleHulk and Johnfreez: Suggestion - You could do something like "Aftermath" or "Devastation", I think titles like those are the ones most commonly used on Wikipedia articles. I just didn't like you talking about people like that, especially them being killed that way. EagerBeaverPJ (talk) 08:07, 20 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Those suggestions are too vague for the subheader, maybe acceptable replacements for "Impact". But yeah, "scorched" was simultaneously lurid and euphemistic, suggesting the charred and ashen stuff was merely licked by flame and lightly browned. I think I'll go with "Fire", sounds less like a verb than "burning" does. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:08, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 23 September 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 01:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2020 Western United States wildfires → 2020 Western United States wildfire season – Since it's evident we're going to be talking about all of the wildfires that were ignited in the Western United States during 2020, I think we should change the article's title to reflect its focus on the wildfire season more, e.g. 2020 wildfire season, 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, etc. Collectively, these wildfires are seasonal, after all; this season is just a whole lot more destructive. Love of Corey (talk) 01:35, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree. Wildfires in the Western United States occur every year in roughly the same timeframe. The current title of the article makes is appear as if the wildfires are a unique event rather than a unique and significant instance of a common event. Moreover, these fires can be and were anticipated by local firefighting authorities, which is implied by the term "season"; the significance of the 2020 fires was their size and the speed of their spread, not the fact that there were fires. Saying "2020 NFL football" makes it seem like NFL football in 2020 is a unique event by its own merit. Saying "2020 NFL football season" makes it seem like the focus of the article is the unique aspects of a common event. Professor Whumpus (talk) 07:05, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If it's a seasonal thing call it a season. WestCD (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is as seasonal as the drought that sparks it and the rains that extinguish it. As the Australian wildfire video says, "Get Fucken' Used To It". 2605:8D80:4C0:12C3:D4E4:F35B:E00B:1235 (talk) 02:39, 27 September 2020 (UTC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7W9qvFOKIw[reply]
  • Support - Wildfires are annual in the western USA, so it definitely makes sense to add the word "seasons" in the title. — Coastaline (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is a common sense approach and I fully support adding the word "season" to the article's title as it accurately describes what this is and that it occurs on a regular basis. Jurisdicta (talk) 14:28, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This falls in line better with similar articles. Kuralesache (talk) 17:10, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

color coding in 'List of wildfires' section[edit]

it took me a few minutes to figure out the color coding in the 'acres' column. and i am not really sure i figured it out. according to CAL FIRE a fire that is fully contained is still burning, but has been fully surrounded by natural barriers and human intervention. but it is still possible it will jump the containment line. in a contained fire the acreage burned often continues to increase, just not outside the containment area. a controlled fire is not fully extinguished, but is not expected to spread. https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/4938/fireterminology.pdf 

 so, my points
  1. a short sentence before or after the table explaining the intent of the color would improve the readability.
  2. moving the color coding from acreage to containment date might be more appropriate.
  3. can someone point me to the documentation that explains how the color gets inserted? i don't see anything in the source text that says color, and i can't find 'yes2' in the docs. and i see no good reason why 'yes2' means light green and 'no' means light pink.

2600:8801:8500:D72:B1D3:8901:DD92:69A3 (talk) 22:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV in section about rumors[edit]

Hi, Wikipedia's neutrality policy requires us to follow reliable sources and a neutral, encyclopedic tone. This means that we should frame rumors and allegations as such, rather than stating fringe claims as fact. Reliable sources are extremely clear that the rumors were false, so the article needs to clearly state this. Please do not remove terms like "alleged" or "supposed" or change the wording to imply the rumors were true. 143.244.37.63 (talk) 21:19, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wildfire extent calculation[edit]

Hi all, I updated the "Year-to-date wildfire figures" table for today (December 30, 2020 in the Midwest USA). Given this, I would like to ask how the 8.2 million acres figure was computed. I added all the regions containing the eight states (Northwest, Northern California, Southern California, Great Basin, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain) with the latest data from the NIFC and got around 10.3 million acres. Is the figure in use produced some other way? DrainFly2020 (talk) 03:08, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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