Big Burn

Five stories about the growth

and cost of wildfires.

Today: More acres burn,

business booms.

Tuesday: Political meddling

and wasteful “air shows.”

Thursday: More Americans

live in fire’s embrace.

Saturday: Invasive plants

stoke Western infernos.

Sunday: In Australia,

homeowners stay and fight.

About this series

In researching these articles, Times staff writers Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart and photographer Brian Vander Brug traveled throughout California and to Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Australia.

The reporters interviewed more than 175 wildfire experts, incident commanders, scientists and

others, and watched firefighting crews and aircraft in action.

For today’s article, they examined thousands of pages of U.S. Forest Service documents on the Zaca fire, including commanders’

daily logs and detailed financial records.