Seven million acres burned so far this year.

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The National Interagency Fire Center reports that 2012 just broke the record for most acreage burned by wildfires as of this date. The previous record was set in 2006, another mega drought year. That’s nearly 7 million acres—or 10,763 square miles—that have burned so far this record hot and dry year. Currently 35 large fires and fire complexes are actively burning 1,375,022 acres.

In Northern California where I live fire bloomed with August’s dry lightning strikes. Since even the biggest lightning-sparked fire starts out as something small, maybe just a single smoldering tree, sometimes someone finds that tree in time.

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