California fires have resulted in a new event: a "giga-fire" - or one that covers more than 1 million acres.
California wildfires have destroyed more than 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) this year - more than twice any previous fire, according to the state's fire bureau.
Scientists and local authorities have attributed the fires to global warming. Since August, when a storm and heatwave hit, the fires have destroyed 7,000 acres in one part of California alone. It was attributed to a smoke machine that malfunctioned during a gender reveal party.
It has been classified as a giga-fire - a word never before employed in California. It started from a "mega fire" called the August Complex and later labeled with the new name when it ate up more than 1 million acres of land, the Guardian reported.
California's fires are the most destructive in the state. At this magnitude, it is almost six times the land area of Singapore. At more than a million acres, the blaze is bigger than the state of Rhode Island and is causing destruction across seven counties, fire agency Cal Fire said.
The August Complex fire has destroyed around 160 buildings and killed a firefighter. It has been burning for 50 days and has been 50% contained only. The wildfires have claimed 31 lives and burned about 8,700 properties since the start of the year.
The last U.S. giga-fire was the Taylor Complex in Alaska which burned through more than 1.3 million acres in 2004, the National Interagency Fire Center said. The Yellowstone Fire in Montana and Idaho destroyed around 1.6 million acres in 1988.
According to CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford, the wildfires in California had grown eightfold since the 1970s and the area burned by fires each year has risen by almost 500%.
