Nearly 8.5 million acres of land have burned in wildfires for the first 9 months of this year.
That's not counting the almost 170,000 acres burned or still burning in California this month.
If every fire in the United States were extinguished tomorrow, and there were no more wildfires through the end of the year, 2017 would rank 7th for the most acres burned.
If you compare all of those years and only count the first nine months of the year, however, 2017 jumps to fourth place.
The first half of 2017 was wrought with more wildfires and more acres burned than almost every other year on record.
In the past few months, that trend somewhat slowed until the California wildfires currently burning in both Northern and Southern California picked things up again.
The final three months of the year aren't peak wildfire season, but fires can still burn a lot more acreage in that short time — more than a million more acres like in 2015 and 2007 or a mere 400,000 acres in 2012.
If that number's on the higher end of things, 2017 will crack the Top 3 for burning the most acreage in a year.
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