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A California wildfire has burned 4,Discuss Section100 acres with zero percent containment as of Tuesday morning, according to Santa Barbara County fire officials. The Cave Fire started in the Santa Ynez Mountains on Monday and, stoked by winds, eventually moved towards populated parts of Santa Barbara County, CNN reports.

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The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office issued evacuation orders and warnings for threatened swaths of the county, and Santa Barbara County reported on Twitter that southern parts of the county experienced power outages.

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On Monday night, Santa Barbara County declared a state of emergency, saying the fire conditions were "beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities" accessible to them.

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As of Tuesday, the blaze rages on.

Research has shown that fires are getting more severe in the Northern Hemisphere. Wildfires in the U.S. burn for weeks longer than in the 1970s, and are burning twice as much land as was burned in the 1990s.

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In California specifically, dry falls mean a longer, stronger fire season.

"What we’re seeing is a harbinger of things to come as this century progresses," Sasha Gershunov, a research meteorologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said to Mashable last year.

Indeed, recent research lays out evidence that California will experience a shorter, more concentrated rain season, with more rain between December and February, but less during the fall and spring, as Mashable explained last year.

Photos from the Cave Fire help convey its impact.

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The fire has spurred power outages in the region. Credit: KYLE GRILLOT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Winds stoked the fire. Credit: KYLE GRILLOT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES As of Tuesday, the Cave Fire was zero percent contained. Credit: KYLE GRILLOT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES The blaze has prompted mandatory evacuations. Credit: KYLE GRILLOT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Credit: Kyle Grillot / AFP via Getty Images Credit: kyle Grillot / AFP via Getty Images

UPDATE: Nov. 26, 2019, 2:47 p.m. EST A previous version of this article stated that fires are burning twice as much land as was burned in the 1980s. The story has been updated to indicate that fires are burning twice as much land as was burned in the 1990s.

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