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2.5: Data Dive- California Wildfires

  • Page ID
    70782
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    Overview

    When the United States Forest Service was established in 1905 it was declared that, “Today we understand that forest fires are wholly within the control of men.” Humanity assumes time and time again that nature can be controlled, and the National Forest Service were shown how wrong their assumption was 5 years later… The Great Fire of 1910 burned about 3 million acres and killed 86 people. As a consequence of this fire, serious fire suppression policies were put in place and Smokey The Bear was slapped onto posters to represent the cause. At that point, Smokey the Bear told us, "only you can prevent forest fire," indicating that all fire is bad. It has only been in the last couple decades have these policies been questioned and the repercussions of fire suppression of them realized. Now Smokey has updated the saying to, "only you can prevent wildfire," indicating that only some types of fire are bad. The figure below illustrates the number of acres burned in California between 1987 and 2020:

     Bar graph showing total acres burned from 1987 to 2020

     

    Figure \(\PageIndex{a}\): Total acres burned through the years in California. Graph created by Rachel Schleiger (CC-BY-NC) modified from data collected by CalFire

     

    Questions

    1. What kind of graph is this?
    2. What is the independent (explanatory) variable and the dependent (response) variable?
    3. What question(s) are the authors trying to answer with this graph?
    4. What trend(s) can be observed in this graph? Support your answer by referring to appropriate patterns in the graph.
    5. How can we use the results of this graph to inform future fire policies/projects/etc?
    6. What does the results of this graph make you curious about?

     

    Raw Data For Above Graph(s)

    Table \(\PageIndex{a}\): Raw data table of total acres burned through the years in California. Table by Rachel Schleiger (CC-BY-NC) modified from data collected by CalFire

    Year Total Acres Burned
    1987 873000
    1988 345000
    1989 173400
    1990 365200
    1991 44200
    1992 282745
    1993 309779
    1994 526219
    1995 209815
    1996 752372
    1997 283885
    1998 215412
    1999 1172850
    2000 295026
    2001 329126
    2002 969890
    2003 1020460
    2004 264988
    2005 222538
    2006 736022
    2007 1520362
    2008 1593690
    2009 422147
    2010 109529
    2011 168545
    2012 869599
    2013 601635
    2014 625540
    2015 893362
    2016 669534
    2017 1548429
    2018 1975086
    2019 259823
    2020 4177856

    Attributions

    Rachel Schleiger (CC-BY-NC)


    This page titled 2.5: Data Dive- California Wildfires is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Melissa Ha and Rachel Schleiger (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative) .

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