California’s Wildfires Damaging Crop Yield
The 2020 wildfire outbreak is by far the most damaging one ever seen in California. Even before the fire outbreak in September 2020, there was some major trees die-off, because of the droughts. General dryness and lack of rains contributed to what was later seen as the greatest fires in the state’s history. As the Californian Fire Department reported on Monday the 14th of September: 7,718 fires have burned 3.2 million acres (5,000 square miles), many of them were yields.
California is the leading food producer in the US. It is estimated that the state’s output per acre is 60 percent higher than the national average. The dairy industry in the region is the largest countrywide and in 2019 produced 40 564 million pounds of milk. Wildfires’ impact on the industry is not only on-site damages of infrastructure and losses in herds but also more long-term effects such as a decrease in air and soil quality. Moreover, damaging fires make it impossible for farmworkers to continue their day-to-day duties as the environment is currently not suitable for work.
The situation remains ongoing and final losses will be calculated after the fires have been extinguished. The region is threatened by recurring damaging fires. Similar fires that occurred in 2018 caused $845 million in insurance losses by the end of that year. So far this year’s disaster cost over $1.080 billion and it is estimated that it will cost much more.
