Hell state

California is on fire, in more ways than one. Not only is this year’s fire season on pace to surpass that of 2016, with Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service having already battled 6,023 fires that have burned 500,179 acres in the state (as compared with 6,986 and 564,835 in all of 2016), but temperatures all over California have been flirting with record highs throughout the summer as well. Overall, according to NASA, 2017 is poised to be the planet’s second hottest year on record, surpassed only by 2016, and in Northern California we are bracing for another wave of extreme heat, with the National Weather Service issuing an excessive heat warning for Labor Day weekend as valley temperatures are forecast to range from 105 to 114.