The United States' west coast has been dealing with a series of wildfires for weeks. At least 35 people have been killed so far, and that number is expected to climb.
Scientists believe climate change has been the primary factor in the ability of the fires to spread. As of September 17th, California has lost 3.3 million acres, Oregon 940k acres, and Washington 600k acres to fire.
The California fire was notoriously started by a gender reveal.
The smoke released by the wildfires into the atmosphere will reach Europe after crossing the Atlantic. Fires in the United States don't typically generate enough smoke for any of it to reach Europe, indicating the scale of the current blazes.
My question, which could be the basis of a new story world: what would happen if the fires never went out?
Obviously, there is a limit in the amount of fuel above ground. But what if there was a natural gas seam that caught fire and continued to burn up and down the west coast?
The first issue the people living in this world would have to deal with is the smoke. As of this writing, the air quality in Los Angeles is similar to smoking more than a pack of cigarettes. What if this was the new normal across the United States?
Children couldn't go outside to play, and exercise would all have to be indoors. It would be a pandemic-style existence over the long haul.
Agriculture would suffer from such a high amount of smoke in the atmosphere. The story could revolve around an immigrant family who comes to the states, assured they could work on a farm to find there isn't enough work.
They are forced to take on illegal jobs that pay cash, like drug-running and sex work. While I'm wary of painting Hispanic immigrants in a negative light, it could provide context as to why people are forced into lines of work on the wrong side of the law.
With any luck, seeing the plight of migrant workers would create awareness for their precarious situations in our current culture.
Each installment in the potential series could follow different people: firefighters, office workers, and teachers.
Better yet, the story could start at a meeting with people from every group about the best way to support their failing town. The different groups of people contribute something based on their varied life experiences, turning their town into the model for others.
The stakes could be raised when the fire spreads even further in the second book, creating the need to account for the blaze instead of just focusing on the smoke's second-order effects. They leave, creating new areas towns based on their model, eventually developing alliances and enemies with other towns in their immediate vicinity.
Where's the Federal government in all this? They've got their hands full dealing with the international fallout from the massive amounts of smoke generated on their soil.
