Calfire: Wildfire season 'elongated by upwards of 40-50 days'

If you think California has seen more frequent and intense wildfires in recent years-- you'd be right. Thirteen of the largest 20 wildfires in California history have broken out since the year 2000.

Some of the largest include the Rim Fire near Yosemite, the Rush Fire in Lassen County and the Cedar Fire in San Diego.

Experts agree, while the wildfires are naturally occurring, they are trending bigger, longer, and more devastating.

Calfire Deputy Chief Scott McLean spoke with us on FaceTime about why this is happening. "Our, if you want to call it, seasons have been elongated by upwards of 40-50 days over the last 50 years and continues to do so," he said. "We had the five years of drought. A lot of trees died, over 102 million trees died."

"The vegetation's still dry," he continued. "Even though we had the significant weather pattern the first of the year and last year we still need several of those weather patterns for the next several years to bring us back to where we need to be in the state of California."