Are wildfires getting worse?
From Santa Cruz to South Carolina, the U.S. is having another wild year for wildfires -- already its eighth above average in a decade -- and some scientists say climate change is fanning the flames.
By Russell McLendonTue, Aug 18 2009 at 8:30 AM EST
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Despite six decades of stern reminders from Smokey Bear, wildfires are scorching more and more of America lately. About 2.9 million acres burned each year in the U.S. between 1985 and 1995, but since then, the average has jumped to more than 6 million acres annually, including at least 5.9 million that burned nationwide in 2009.It's enough to give the impression — contrary to what Smokey says — that we may have lost our knack for preventing forest fires. Either that, or the fires are just getting worse.
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The problem isn't that we're losing our touch, though. In fact, it's partly that we're a little too good at fighting wildfires — by oversuppressing them for decades, people disrupted natural fire cycles and let too much wildfire fuel build up. Forestry managers now light controlled burns to clear out this excess debris.
More people also now live near forests than in the past, raising both the stakes and chances of a fire. From 2001-2008, humans started five times more wildfires than lightning did. Backyard burn piles and arson are two of the top human causes, although cigarettes, campfires and catalytic converters are also often to blame. Southern California's 87,000-acre La Brea Fire in 2009 was reportedly started by a cooking fire on an illegal marijuana farm.
But Ochoa worries, as do many scientists, that there's another, even more dangerous culprit fanning the flames: global warming.
"We still have a long way to go on prescribed burns," he says. "But I would say that while we are making improvements on that, in some regards the global warming is outrunning our ability to do it."
Wildfire seasons tend to oscillate between severe and calm every couple years, but scientists have begun noticing an overall upward trend in the acreage burned, if not necessarily the number of fires (see graph above). It seems to correspond with the ongoing increase of U.S. temperatures that's widely blamed on greenhouse gas emissions.
"It was probably sometime in the '90s, maybe late '80s, when I really noticed it personally," Ocha says. "But if you look back at the research, the last 10 to 15 years, they're much higher than what we've seen in the last 30 years in terms of fire activity. And the dominant factor has been the climate change."
How does climate affect wildfire?As usual, most wildfires in recent years have been out West. About 2.9 million acres burned in Alaska in 2009, and long-running droughts in the already-arid Southwest fed intense fire seasons in Texas (753,000 acres), New Mexico (421,000) and Arizona (263,000). Nearly 406,000 acres burned across California in '09, but its high population density means even small fires can cause big trouble.
Despite having higher rainfall, the East Coast is far from fireproof. South Carolina had its worst wildfire in 30 years in April 2009, forcing thousands to evacuate during the height of Myrtle Beach's spring tourist season. Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp burned for four months in 2007, sending plumes of smoke 250 miles north to Atlanta. And New Jersey's Pine Barrens — an eccentric ecosystem with orchids, carnivorous plants and rare pygmy pines — contains some of the densest wildfire fuels in the country, equivalent to more than 1,300 gallons of gasoline per acre in some places.
Longer and larger droughts are forecast as the climate heats up, which will in turn feed bigger wildfires all across the country. Even now, delayed snowfall and early snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is straining one of the West's main watersheds, and overall U.S. precipitation is down 10 percent since 1966. Many also blame the spread of voracious pine beetles — which are suddenly turning entire forests into firewood — on rising temperatures.
"The primary driver is climate change, the fact that we're seeing warmer years and more droughts," Ochoa says. "That means fuels are drier, a greater amount of insect damage and earlier snowmelt."
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is widely seen as the best hope for combating climate change, and that's already proved to be an uphill battle. But there are still lots of things anyone can do to prevent forest fires — when they need preventing, that is.
What causes wildfires?Fire is a natural occurrence in every U.S. state except Hawaii. Sparked by lightning, natural wildland fires clean out dead or overgrown plant matter, exposing the soil for new plant growth and preventing dangerously big future fires.
They can also have customized effects for specific ecosystems. In Alaska, for example, springtime fires help warm up the frigid soil, and pitch pines living along the East Coast — especially in the fiery Pine Barrens and Florida Everglades — rely on wildfires to help them reproduce.
As Europeans streamed into North America during the past few centuries, they were often surprised by the large wildfires they encountered, and a well-meaning assumption soon became tradition — forests on fire were seen as forests in trouble, and most wildfires were extinguished while they were still small. This had drastic ecological consequences as the fire fuel built up over decades, setting off waves of wildfire when it finally did burn out of control, often during a drought.
Today, forestry officials conduct controlled, low-intensity burns for a variety of ecological tasks, mainly clearing out dry, dense debris that could fuel a fire. More than 2.5 million acres were torched by prescribed burns across the U.S. in 2009, much more than in '08. And it's still not enough.
Most wildfires caused by humans begin when flames escape from burning debris piles, a problem that can be alleviated by obeying local burn bans or simply checking the weather before burning. While the No. 2 cause, arson, isn't as easy to prevent, there are thousands of wildfires started across the country each year by various other acts of human carelessness.
Flicked cigarettes and abandoned campfires are two well-known fire starters (thanks to Smokey's tireless six-decade campaign), but cars, trains and various other mechanical equipment can also provide a light. The catalytic converters on automobiles — which serve an environmental purpose by filtering pollutants from tailpipe emissions — can heat up dry vegetation beneath an idling car, igniting a wildfire. Trains, tractors and other industrial workhorses sometimes start fires by shooting sparks into dry grass or brush, although spark arrestors greatly reduce that risk.
"People have to be extra careful with things like campfires, catalytic converters," Ochoa says. "We can't control the lightning, but we can control our actions."
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Wildfire hot links
For more tips and information to satisfy your burning curiosity, try these 10 links from Uncle Sam:
- SmokeyBear.com: Be Smart Outdoors
- U.S. Forest Service: Fire Prevention
- U.S. Forest Service: Life After a Fire
- National Park Service: Fire Ecology
- National Park Service: Fire Timeline
- NIFC: National Fire News
- NIFC: Wildland Fire Statistics
- USGS: A Global Perspective on Wildfires
- NASA: Potential Effects of Global Warming
- NASA: Multisensor Fire Observations
MNN homepage photo: ericcastro/Flickr
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Comments
rue
Today 15:09 PM
if christian is reading this... i want to tell him i love him and i would die in a wildfire just to protect him.
Cody
01/07/2011 12:10 PM
The chart of states is inaccurate by a lot
boo67
01/03/2011 14:01 PM
wild fires suck i had one and it burnt down my house
savanna
01/01/2011 13:18 PM
i love to talk about wild fires
qwwww1234
02/19/2011 06:30 AM
While we've listed our advertisers on our website (as many sites do), our editorial product is completely independent and robust and isn't tied to any corporate interests. While we're grateful to have advertising dollars in these times, our top mission is to inspire and educate folks in the environmental space.
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savanna
01/01/2011 13:18 PM
i love to talk about wild fires
Tori
12/02/2010 10:14 AM
whay is there alot of fires??? How do they all start???
Amy j p
01/12/2011 18:53 PM
well they happen by people throwing cigarettes on the ground thats by people.by nature it starts from a drought.
mckenzie
10/17/2010 15:05 PM
why is there so many fires?
mckenzie
10/17/2010 15:06 PM
why is there so many fires?
Chief Gerald Duley
10/12/2010 13:37 PM
i am a new wild land unit and need someone to help me throw the bs and to get some grants to get started
wilfredo bravo from pima agency B.I.A. WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER
09/16/2010 17:44 PM
PLEASE DONT THE LIVES OF YOUR FAMILY AND THE LIVES OF YOUR FIREFIGHTERS WHEN IT COMES TO THE POINT YOU HAVE TO EVACUATE . GET UP AND GO IF THERE SHOULD BE A FIRE CLOSE TO YOUR AREA . PERSONAL VALUES ARE NOT WORTH YOUR LIFE ,OR THE LIFE OF OTHERS SO PLEASE BE SAFE AND TAKE CARE .
gennifer green
08/06/2010 19:50 PM
wildfires are so scary and you never know if firefighters know about them
Rosalie Bobnick
05/17/2010 14:27 PM
FIRE IS BAD!! :)
Stop killing me!
-Deric Whte
01/28/2010 18:01 PM
Someone is profiting from this money pit. Being from California I have been through more wild fires than most of these experts have experted. This whole wild fire thing needs to be restructured bottom line, 2003 wild fire claimed 24 lives and 3710 homes destroyed again in 2007 more home and small communities consumed by wild fire this is uncalled for. The greed this money that is associate with wild fire is causing the suppression of wild fire to be over looked. Case and point I have.... More
pete alex
08/14/2010 12:43 PM
I'm involved in a forest fire prevention and reforestation project in Greece. I'm interested to see more info on your fire prevention ideas. Please email me :
Lew from Lake Don Pedro
01/27/2010 12:01 PM
Mother Nature is one thing but human nature is another. Wildfires are always going to occur for one reason or another but limiting the serious damage to life and property is proclaimed to be a priority by authorities. Oh really? I live in a rural Sierra Nevada foothill community that is a designated high fire serverity danger zone as determined by the California Department of Forestry. One of the biggest difficulties firefighters have traditionally faced is the inability to reach such.... More
nonyabussieness SO MIND IT!!!!!!!!!!! :P
11/22/2009 14:28 PM
This is terrible what happens and i think every fire deserves a big hug with so water!! we dont need or wnat any fires to happen to our community so why dont you take care of it ppl for cring out loud dam**
Deebie chaves
09/15/2009 12:01 PM
i think this is some bs stop letting people camp then with trees surounded cause thier care less
Anonymous
09/06/2009 11:59 AM
There will be more fires in the future. Mother Earth is dying along with humanity. We have exploited it so much. We have abused her with atomic explosions that it is unstable. Global warning is killing her.
Eventually Planet Earh will resemble a yellow colored quagmire, like a pot of boiling clay and water, devoid of any life.
But there is hope for those that want to overcome. A free gift for humanity is available. No group to join, no money required. Any human being, regardless.... More
michelle
09/30/2010 11:52 AM
the world does need to change for the world will end in time but if the people of the world would work together maybe just maybe humanity will have a chance once more and mother earth can still go on living for thousands and thousands of years being delicate as she is now
Josh
08/20/2009 13:30 PM
There's actually quite a bit of research showing that the overall acreage and severity of fires has not changed from pre-suppression days and is less in western conifer forests. In California, for example, research has shown that pre-European settlers, fires of all kinds were quite common. Also, while many believe that we are having unnaturally large and intense fires now, there's been research to show that we are in fact in a deficit of these fires from historical conditions, and that these.... More
Anonymous
08/18/2009 19:08 PM
"Fires are a healthy way for nature to clean up after itself." Agreed. Humans preventing forest fires actually is against "mother nature." Perhaps a more realistic theory than global warming causing the increase is that preventing forest fires over the last 25+ years has increased the amount of flamable dead wood and underbrush laying around which causes forest fires to get out of control quicker?
erin.p.fielding
08/18/2009 18:13 PM
I had no idea that so many acres burned in Georgia. You never hear about them. Thank you for this really informative and interactive chart.
Anonymous
08/18/2009 17:11 PM
Very timely explainer and, as usual, very informative piece.
Guest
08/18/2009 16:03 PM
As a 'veteran' wildland fire fighter, I would dare say that wildfires aren't necessarily getting worse however we haven't quite made it to the most active months of forest fires. Friends of mine are wildland fire fighters in California and Colorado, and truth be told- they are bored. They spend their days playing with chainsaws and digging fire line, which are all preventative measures. Up until about a week ago, the "fire season" had been exponentially slower than it was last year when I.... More
mountaingirl
09/25/2009 12:31 PM
Here in the Santa Cruz, CA mountains, home of the recently extinguished Lockheed fire, as well as another smaller one at a historic Lodge in Brookdale, I really don't think our firefighters are bored. In SoCal more acreage burned this year than ever before. You don't know what you are talking about.
OakleighVermont Solargroupies
08/18/2009 14:50 PM
Timely story on the devastating phenomenon. More and more resources are needed to fight fires and deal with losses. It seems that the causes seem to multiply with climate change and increased population.
Pamela Drake
08/18/2009 10:03 AM
Hard to know...I'm in Texas and our problem is a lingering drought which has made the whole place a cinderblock. Is global warming causing the drought? Who knows...it could also be more people, using more water, and destroying more vegetation. I've also heard that one of the problems in california is that people are building houses in areas that should be fire zones...and not subdivisions.
CL
08/18/2009 10:02 AM
When I lived in southern California when I was a little kid, wildfires were one of my biggest phobias (along with earthquakes--eek!). I don't live in California anymore, but it's kind of freaky that untamed disasters could be getting worse with global warming. I used to live near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a few years, too, so it's kind of weird to know that a fire happened there. To think that a wildfire could happen in so many different places in the country makes me nervous!
Sean Roberts
08/18/2009 10:00 AM
Alaska surprises me. I didn't think that state would have so many.
