Climate Change? Nahhh ...

I thought all fires of a significant size were named. Isn't it partially to help identify them and areas, etc. I am sure it adds to at least some strategic nature in tackling them too. When they blow up to 100,000 acres I'm guessing you can easily point them out, but there is a reason behind it.

Being in Colorado, don't ever remember them not being named.

Edit: Spartan Squad said it better than I did.

 

The confusing part is that the names seem very random to the general public. IIRC, they name them after a major landmark near the point of origin, which can be something as obscure as a pumping station or a local geographical feature like a hill or canyon. It's rarely a town or county. Then when the fire starts blowing up and threatening towns, it's hard to get a read on where exactly the fire is just by hearing the name. It's especially the case when there are multiple fires burning at once.

 

The stupidest one was last year: the Camp Fire. Oh boy, we're having a campfire. I'll bring the marshmallows.

 

That’s exactly how the names get chosen. It’s a useful convention for the firefighters but not so much to help the layman. It’s something you know or you have to look up.

 

"Named after Camp Creek Road, its place of origin, the fire started on Thursday, November 8, 2018, in Northern California's Butte County."

 

Except even if you lo0k them up it can be hard to find.
It's like here in the south when we get tornado warnings and the TV weather people are tracking them on the radar. I've lived here half my life, driven all over the state and been to a lot of places. I like to think I have a fair amount of local geographical knowledge, at least as far as saying, "Oh yeah, that's in such-and-such county, down around Shelbyville." But then a tornado comes through a rural area and the weather people start mentioning communities (most likely subdivisions and trailer parks) I've never heard of and treating them as if they were major cities.
Maybe it's just part of the territory of dealing with a natural disaster in a rural area, but it seems like there should be a mechanism to rename the fire as it grows to trigger more awareness among the public.

 

And the 420 fire every weekend when the dispensaries open.

 

I wonder how much of naming fires is like naming storms. Thank the insurance lobbyists.
If my place takes damage from an unnamed storm, my deductible is $2500. If the storm has a name, it's $6500.

 

Didn't know that about the deductible, but insurance is a consideration when they decide to retire a storm name. It's done, in part, to avoid confusion and simplify the thousands of insurance and legal claims arising from major hurricanes.