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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 McLendon
Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 8:30 AM EST
Read more: WILDFIRE

 
Editor's note 9.1.09: As wildfires continue to wreak havoc in California, doubling in size and causing thousands to flee, our wildfires primer gives you the science behind the news.
 
As Smokey Bear celebrates his 65th birthday this month, forests are on fire across the U.S. West. Thousands have fled their homes in California while wildfires explode across the state. Two fires alone are currently burning a million acres in Alaska. Nationwide, an area almost eight times the size of Rhode Island has gone up in smoke this year.
 
It's part of a recent trend that gives the impression — despite what Smokey says — that we've lost our knack for preventing forest fires. After burning an average 2.9 million acres in the United States annually from 1985-1995, they've averaged more than 6 million acres a year ever since, including nearly 20 million combined in 2006 and '07.
 
 
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. The recent 87,000-acre La Brea Fire in Southern California 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: climate change.
 
"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 this year have been out West. About 2.9 million acres have burned in Alaska, and long-running droughts in the already-arid Southwest have fed intense fire seasons in Texas (668,000 acres), New Mexico (360,000) and Arizona (170,000). About 180,000 acres have burned in California, 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 this April, 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 2.1 million acres have undergone prescribed burns in the United States so far this year, which is already more than in all of 2008. 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. It's only August — we still have a lot of fire season to go."
 

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Comments(15)

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Posted By -Deric Whte - Thu, Jan 28 2010 at 6:01 PM EST

Money. Money, and More Money

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

Posted By Lew from Lake Don Pedro - Wed, Jan 27 2010 at 12:01 PM EST

Fire Safe Regulations Ignored

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

Posted By nonyabussieness SO MIND IT!!!!!!!!!!! :P - Sun, Nov 22 2009 at 2:28 PM EST

Take controlll of your selves

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**

Posted By Deebie chaves - Tue, Sep 15 2009 at 12:01 PM EST

so many wildfires lol

i think this is some bs stop letting people camp then with trees surounded cause thier care less

Posted By Anonymous - Sun, Sep 06 2009 at 11:59 AM EST

Wildfires

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

Posted By Josh - Thu, Aug 20 2009 at 1:30 PM EST

story is not necessarily true

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

Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 7:08 PM EST

Most likely theory?

"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?

Posted By GreenErinF - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 6:13 PM EST

Georgia wildfires

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.

Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 5:11 PM EST

California wildfires

Very timely explainer and, as usual, very informative piece.

Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 4:03 PM EST

Bored Firefighters

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

Posted By mountaingirl - Fri, Sep 25 2009 at 12:31 PM EST

bored firefighters

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.

Posted By OakleighVermont Solargroupies - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 2:50 PM EST

Wildfires

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.

Posted By Pamela Drake - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 10:03 AM EST

Is climate change making wildfires worse?

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.

Posted By CL - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 10:02 AM EST

Wildfires = Eeek!

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!

Posted By Sean Roberts - Tue, Aug 18 2009 at 10:00 AM EST

RE: So many wildfires

Alaska surprises me. I didn't think that state would have so many.

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