Where do names for wildfires come from?

Watching California burn from afar, I realized I didn't know the answer. Dr. Google came to my rescue:

Unlike hurricanes, wildfires are not named from a predetermined list. They are named by officials, who choose names based on “a geographical location, local landmark, street, lake, mountain, peak, etc.,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

Why name a fire? Officials said that quickly coming up with a label provides firefighters another way to locate the blaze and allows officials to track and prioritize incidents by name. ...

In most cases, the dispatch center sending the initial resources to a wildfire gets to name it, but sometimes that task falls to the first fire personnel on the scene, officials said. What they name it — well, that is up to them.

“You could have a fire by a landfill — and they might call it the Dump Fire,” Heather Williams, a Cal Fire spokeswoman said. “Sometimes the names come through and it’s like, ‘Really guys?’”

... Ms. Williams conceded that the more remote the area, the harder it is to come up with a good name. Fires sparked by lightning, in particular, can pose a challenge, she said. In those cases, officials may simply use the coordinates on a map grid to name a fire something like “R-15.” Most of those peculiar names, though, go under the radar.

“Twenty to 30 fires start on a given day,” Ms. Williams said, speaking about Cal Fire’s jurisdiction. “Only a handful reach the point that the public knows about them.”

Matt Stevens, New York Times

That's clear enough. But the way the media sometimes seize on the names and then repeat them endlessly without very precise geographical explanation may confuse as much as it helps.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle touts its California Fire Tracker as the go-to source on wildfires. But getting information out of it requires already knowing the name and general area of the fire you want to track. They could do better.