How do they name wildfires? Where "Park Fire," "Nixon Fire" and others come from
How the largest wildfires of the year — including the Park Fire — get their names comes down to simple geography. But not all incidents are easy to map.
There are 16 active major firefights in California as of Aug. 1, according to Cal Fire's incident map. More than a half-dozen wildfires are also active in Colorado.
Nearly all of those fires have quickly identifiable names — like the Park Fire, which started off of Upper Park Road in Upper Bidwell Park east of the city of Chico, and the Nixon Fire, which spread from Richard Nixon Boulevard in the Aguanga area.
The 2018 Camp Fire in California that killed 85 people was named after Camp Creek Road, the first road that firefighters took to get to the flames.
That simple naming convention is key, fire officials say.
Who decides on the names of wildfires?
As detailed by the National Interagency Coordination Center, most wildland fires are named by first responders to the scene, who rely on a nearby landmark or street to simplify locating and expediting the initial attack on a blaze.
This convention has led to some memorable names, such as the 2014 Butts Fire near Lake Berryessa that was named after Butts Canyon Road. Two people were killed in that incident.
As seen on Cal Fire's list of currently active incidents, sometimes several fires are grouped together as a "complex" incident.
The 2024 SQF Lightning Complex Fire burning in Tulare County is made up of three smaller fires: the Borel, Trout and Long incidents. These kinds of incidents were caused by lightning strikes that led to several fire starts over a large area.
Notably, the largest wildfire in recorded California history was a lightning-caused incident: 2020's August Complex Fire, which burned parts of Glenn, Lake, Mendocino, Tehama, Trinity and Shasta counties. That wildfire, which saw several fires merge, totaled 1,032,648 acres burned.
The 2024 Park Fire has grown to be California's fifth-largest wildfire.
When did they start naming wildfires?
Reliable fire records didn't start being kept in California until after the 1930s. Still, some experts rank one major incident from the 1800s among the top 10 largest wildfires ever in the state: the 1889 Santiago Canyon Fire.
Exact acreage numbers affected by the Santiago Canyon Fire aren't known, but it's believed to have burned around 300,000 acres in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.
All other wildfires among the top 10 largest ever in California date back just to 2017.
