Category: PATA_West_Wildfires_2022_Related

Canada’s seemingly endless wildfires in 2023 introduced millions of people across North America to the health hazards of wildfire smoke. While Western states have contended with smoky fire seasons for years, the air quality alerts across the U.S. Midwest and Northeast this summer reached levels never seen there before.

A jury verdict that found an Oregon power company liable for devastating wildfires — and potentially billions of dollars in damages — is highlighting the legal and financial risks utilities take if they fail to take proper precautions in a hotter, drier climate.

Human-caused climate change could be playing a significant role in fueling the surge of devastating wildfires in California, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist and his collaborators say in a new report.

Although California may be enjoying a lull in this year’s wildfire season — courtesy of a wet winter and a cool spring — scientists say humanity’s relentless burning of fossil fuels has ensured that wildland fires will scorch ever larger portions of the state, perhaps as much as 52% more by midcentury.

Right now, eastern North America sits under a blanket of choking smoke and an eerie orange haze more appropriate to the surface of Mars than the Great Lakes or Atlantic Seaboard.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and a team of top city officials urged New Yorkers to limit outdoor activity whenever possible Wednesday as an eerie cloud of smoke from wildfires in Canada blanketed the skies for the second day in a row.

A new analysis finds that dry air and record-breaking temperatures linked to climate change have led to more frequent severe fires in California

Climate change is worsening wildfires across the United States and putting more people at risk. Warming from heat-trapping pollution is affecting weather conditions in ways that increase the risks of wildfire. Long-term warming trends are drying out forests, grasslands, and other landscapes—helping fires spread and hindering opportunities to fight and prevent them.

In Western Canada, fire season comes early by American standards — beginning, usually, right around now. In Alberta, by today’s date, only about 1,000 acres have burned in recent years. This season so far, the total is already more than 1.5 million — which would make it the province’s third-worst annual result, just a few weeks into May, with months more of wildfire season still to burn. In the United States, by contrast, those who live in fear of wildfire are probably breathing a bit easier. Last year was a relatively light one, with fewer than eight million acres burning across the country — close to the two-decade average and well below the damage of several especially scarring recent seasons.

The climate-warming emissions from the world’s 88 largest fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers are behind more than one third of the wildfires that have increasingly plagued Western North America in recent decades, according to new research.