The firefighters in California are battling the largest wildfire in the state this year, the fifth largest in Californian history. The park fire, which appears to have been started deliberately near the city of Chico a week ago, is consuming around 20 square kilometers an hour. The burnt area spans just under 400,000 acres across four counties. So far, it is only 18% contained, according to a Cali fire. Now, let's speak to Stephanie Norsio, a small business owner that's been affected by the fire. Stephanie, tell us how it's impacted you and quite how serious this fire is.

Yes, thanks for having me. The impact on small businesses, especially business like mine who operates at outdoors at Farmer's Market, has been substantial. The road closures have been limiting, visitor access, the tourism has been down because the wild Fire, smoke has been consistently hazardous for the past two weeks. There are a number of businesses, including mine, that have been forced to make alternate arrangements to move indoors from these outdoor facilities that spaces that we work from. They have also just been very slow. Their business is here, but the local has been evacuated. The evacuation has been so massive, not a a busy clientele to be reached now. So it's been very sad and very devastating.

It sounds like a very touch and go situation. Are you in the position where you may also have to evacuate?

Unfortunately for me, I'm not in the position where we have to evacuate. We're mostly forced to stay indoors because the wildfire smoke is so hazardous and it just really messes with your senses. So we've been lucky. My neighbors have been, my surrounding communities have been impacted more so than I am. So I'm in Kernville and the majority of the evacuation zones have been in Lake Isabella, South Lake, Botfish, predominantly. And they're still in effect going forward this weekend. So hopefully there's some evacuations that get lifted, but it's still up in the air.

Yeah, it does seem like a very unpredictable situation when it comes to these massive wildfires. Do you feel that authorities have the resources at their disposal to keep people safe?

Definitely. The resources have been continuing to come in, and I feel at this point we have enough resources to be able to manage any situation that may arise. We have a great huge fire camp set up here. There's a massive amount of helicopters, and there's dropping retarded, dropping water. There's hand crews now It does seem to have expanded. The amount of resources has expanded since Friday. A lot of the major damage in this community, specifically, Havala, was taking place on Friday of last week, and now we're at the point where it's definitely manageable. There's been a couple of smaller fires that have broken out nearby where I'm at, and the resources have been so quick to jump on it and extinguish these smaller little fires that have developed recently as well.

Stephanie, just quickly, going forward, there seems to be extreme weather events all around the world. Do you get a sense as well that wildfires in California are just getting worse?

Yes. My partner is a wildland firefighter, so he gets and gives me a first-hand look at the current fires that are happening. This is the worst year we've had in the past two years. This past few years weren't as bad.

Yeah. Stephanie, thank you so much for speaking to us. Stephanie Norcio, the small business owner in owner in California.