Every kid in the US learns of the Great Chicago Fire (2,112 acres) in school and how modern building codes & fire depts have made this impossible, yet both the 2023 Lahaina & the current Palisades Fire crossed 17,000 acres - 8x the size! I marked up a map of Chicago to compare.

The Carr Fire, as it came to be known, ignited on July 23 near the hamlet of Whiskeytown, fifteen miles west of Redding, due to sparks thrown by a trailer wheel with a flat tire. Three days later, the fire roared into the city. The temperature that day was similar to Black Saturday, 2009: 113°F (tying a local record that was 13°F above the average

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The borough, by law, was responsible for installing a fire-resistant clay barrier between each layer of the landfill,[16] but fell behind schedule, leaving the barrier incomplete. This allowed the hot coals to penetrate the coal seam underneath the pit and start the subsequent subterranean fire.[17][18]