Dozens of people on multiple continents have died. Blazes have reduced homes and businesses to rubble. Thick smoke has darkened skies and carried fine-particle pollution thousands of miles from its source.
Fire is just one face of climate change, which also drives broiling heat, catastrophic storms and floods and other wacky weather. But the dramatic images of this summer's infernos, from flames to ash, are a stark reminder of just how much things have changed, and how much we still stand to lose.
Without any warning, residents say they were unable to save many of their neighbors, including children. People tried to rush out of Lahaina even as closed roads hindered evacuation efforts. Some, trapped in their cars, jumped over a seawall into rough waves to escape. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden took an aerial tour of the devastation in Hawaii on Monday. In his remarks in Lahaina, Biden made reference to the burned but surviving banyan tree considered beloved and sacred by many in the island community. The damage is overwhelming and the cleanup will be hard and long, Biden said.