The Size of the California Wildfires Compared to Philly

The West Coast is a different scale than the East Coast. After all, California alone is almost the size of New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic combined. So when we take that enormous size into consideration, how big are these fires on an East Coast scale? It can be difficult to imagine.

Thankfully the Philadelphia Inquirer addressed the issue.

It’s a simple concept, but I love these kind of graphics. The East Coast is dense and cities and towns are clustered closer together, being they were founded before personal automobiles were things. And so the August Complex fire in California would cover a significant portion of the Philadelphia metropolitan area, almost wiping it all off the map.

Credit for the piece goes to John Duchneskie.

Author: Brendan Barry

I am a graphic designer who focuses on information design. Most recently I worked for the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and prior to that I was Head of Design at Euromonitor International with my design team split between Chicago and London.

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