The
West is ablaze as the summer wildfire season has gotten off to an intense
start. More than 37,000 fires have burned more than 5.2 million acres
nationally since the beginning of the year, with 47 large fires burning across
nine states as of Friday.
The relatively early activity is
quickly becoming the norm, with rising temperatures making the fire season
longer than it used to be. The warming fueled by greenhouse gases is also
helping to create more and larger fires as it dries out more vegetation that
acts as fuel for fires.
This
new fire situation means that western states need to be begin to rethink how
they prepare for and combat fires, as well as how fire-prone land is developed.
Five large fires (those of 1,000
acres or more) are currently raging across California, the largest of which is
the Detwiler fire near Yosemite National Park, which has
burned more than 80,000 acres since it ignited on July 16. That fire is now 75
percent contained, but it destroyed dozens of buildings, including 63 homes.
Montana currently has the most large fires of any state, with
14, including the massive Lodgepole Complex fire (a
series of smaller fires that merged into one), which has burned more than
270,000 acres in the eastern portion of the state. That fire is also
well-contained, but has burned through tens of thousands of acres of rangeland,
displacing thousands of cattle and burning several structures. An intense
drought there has rapidly cured the grasses that have fueled the fires.
Oregon
has seven large fires burning, while Nevada has six and Idaho five.
Scorching
temperatures and dry conditions in recent weeks have helped fuel these fires
across the region, which have burned 2 million more acres than at this point in
last year’s wildfire season.
Compared to the 10-year average of
wildfire activity, this year is below average for the number of fires, but
above average for the total number of acres burned. A very active wildfire
season in the Central Plains pushed up the acres burned; a wet winter meant
grasslands were ripe with fuel, and once hot and dry weather came and fires
ignited, they could take off more quickly than fires that burn through forested
areas, Robin Broyles, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center, said.
A 2016 Climate Central analysis showed that the annual number of large
fires has tripled since the 1970s and that the amount of land they burn is six
times higher than it was four decades ago.
While multiple factors, including land use and tree disease,
influence fire activity, climate change is playing a role in those trends. A
study published in October found that rising temperatures accounted for nearly half of the increase in acres burned, as they helped to dry
out forests and extend the length of the fire season.
The
fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970s, the Climate Central
analysis found.
The
lengthening of the fire season has become clear in California, which usually
didn’t see major fires until the Santa Ana winds kicked in in the fall and
vegetation had dried out over several months.
Now bouts of hot, dry weather are
coming earlier and earlier, setting the stage for prime fire conditions.
Southern California already has a nearly year-round fire season, Scott Stephens, a
professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley, said.
With
those hot periods likely coming earlier and earlier in spring and summer as
global temperatures continue to rise, “you’re going to have a longer period
where fire can ignite and move,” Stephens said.
While the past few years in California have seen wildfires fueled by the
record-setting drought in
the state that killed off swaths of trees, this fire season has been helped by
the opposite conditions. Ample winter rains allowed grasslands to flourish, so
when hot, dry conditions came in June, those grasses were quickly cured into
perfect fire fuel, Stephens said.
With
the shifts in the fire season, policymakers and fire managers may have to begin
to rethink some of their strategies for preventing fires, particularly as the
longer fire season eats into the time that managers have to conduct prescribed
burns to burn up potential fuel, Stephens said. Areas may also have to do more
prescribed burns during drought years, to reduce fuel loads, he said.
Funding
for firefighting — the costs of which have topped $1 billion in 12 of the past
15 years — may also have to be rethought. Instead of having a seasonal
firefighting team, funding may have to be put in place for a year-round one,
Stephens said.
Hot
and dry conditions are expected to persist across the West over the next few
days, which could help more fires start and spread. Areas in the path of next
month’s solar eclipse, particularly drought-plagued Montana, are also concerned
about the influx of eclipse watchers who may not be aware of the fire danger or
the precautions they’ll need to take in order to avoid accidentally setting
one.
“It’s
really important that people recognize” that danger and are aware of the
various fire restrictions in place, Broyles said.
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