On August 4, 2021, California's largest single wildfire to date torched through the small mountain hamlet of Greenville in the northeastern part of the state, reducing the historic Gold Rush town to ashes in less than an hour. Before it was finally extinguished that October, the so-called Dixie Fire had become the first known wildfire to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains and the most expensive wildfire in United States history, burning a total of 963,309 acres (about 1500 square miles) across five counties—an area larger than the state of Rhode Island—and driving thousands of residents from their homes.

The Dixie Fire was far from the only natural disaster to strike that summer. Uncontrollable wildfires erupted across the country. Cataclysmic floods in Tennessee washed away whole towns. One of the strongest hurricanes on record devastated Louisiana and pummeled the East ...