WHAT’S IN A NAME?

This Is How California Wildfires Get Named

A recent blaze was dubbed the “Easy fire.” It was anything but.

Another wildfire—this one dubbed the “Easy fire”—ignited in California on Wednesday, prompting mandatory evacuations and surrounding the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library with flames. The dissonance between the fire’s name and the clear danger it posed led many to wonder where it came from. The naming convention for wildfires is not like that of hurricanes or other natural disasters, which are named from a pre-set list decided years in advance. According to officials, wildfires are most often named by the dispatch center that sends the initial response out to fire departments, and sometimes the job can even fall to the first responders on scene. As a result, menacing wildfires are most often named after a geographical location or nearby landmark, such as a street name, as was the case for the Easy fire. “You could have a fire by a landfill—and they might call it the Dump Fire,” Heather Williams, a Cal Fire spokeswoman told The New York Times. “Sometimes the names come through and it’s like, ‘Really guys?’”