California Fires Spewed Nearly 1 Million Cars’ Worth of Greenhouse Gases

Thick air pollution from California’s November wildfires blackened skies across the West, but the fires also spewed invisible greenhouse gases into the atmosphere equal to those created from 1 million cars using state roads for a year, according to federal and state statistics.

The Camp Fire—the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history—released an estimated 4.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide alone as it burned through the town of Paradise and surrounding areas, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Forest Service. (The state’s preliminary estimates were slightly different, putting carbon dioxide emissions from the Camp fire at ...