Earlier this month, a balloon coated in aluminum foil—the kind normally seen at a child’s birthday party—drifted into the path of a transmission line, kindling an electrical spark that ignited dry vegetation nearby. Around the same time, a stray flicker from a welding tool landed on an equally parched forest floor several dozen miles away.
The two wildfires—nicknamed the Highway 82 Fire and the Pineland Road Fire, respectively—have since bellowed into infernos, together consuming some 54,000 acres and burning down more than 100 homes as of this week.
