This year, California has had enough wildfires to release the rough equivalent of 68 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, and people who wanted to help gave up Thanksgiving to help cleanup, after a destructive year of wildfires.

“The fires have never been this bad. It’s crazy how bad they have been,” sophomore Brenden Price said.

On Thanksgiving day Lincoln, California helped victims of wildfires have a good Thanksgiving. The community helped serve meals to those who were affected by the wildfires. The local fire department held a turkey drive that resulted in over 100 turkeys being donated.

“I was unaware of the effects of wildfires, it’s worse than I would have ever thought,” sophomore Hunter Miller said.

The carbon pollution made by the wildfires is approximately, equivalent of one year of power pollution, about 5.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.

“It is an alarming number, but we live in a fire-prone state,” director of science for land programs at the California chapter of the Nature Conservancy Dick Cameron said to NBC news.

In November one fire took out 14,000 homes, and killed at least 88 people; another fire, the started that same day, destroyed 1,500 structures including celebrity homes. During a wildfire in mid-November the death toll reached 77, people who were unaccounted for at one point reached 993, and consumed over 150,000 acres of land.

“Someone needs to find out a way to fix the problems fast,or else the consequences will be huge,” Price said.

Authorities in areas affected by wildfires have already begun cleanup of an estimated 6-8 million tons of toxic rubble. The wildfires destroyed over 150,000 acres of land, 11,713 homes. Over 700 people were missing after the fires, though the number is now down to 11.