In the last two years, the state of California, where I live, has been ravaged by fires so unprecedented that a once rare term has now become routine: megafire.

A megafire is a fire that consumes more than 100,000 acres.

A few months ago, in an area near Yosemite National Park, the Ferguson fire raged through the Sierra Nevada mountains, burning 86,000 acres of forest before jumping Highway 41 into the park and scorching another 11,000 acres within its boundaries — not technically a megafire, but just shy of it.

Three thousand people from around the world were dispatched to help fight the blaze, which choked the valley in an impenetrable wall of smoke; two firefighters died. For three weeks during peak season, much of one of the most popular national parks in the country was closed to the public.