It’s Always Fire Season Now
By Manuela Andreoni 11/16/23
It’s the end of fire season in the Amazon, where I am, and I can smell the smoke from burning trees. So can millions of people in Indonesia, India and the United States.
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WILDFIRES
WILDFIRES
The science could not be clearer. The burning of fossil fuels is making the Earth hotter. That makes trees and other vegetation drier. And those conditions make wildfires start more easily, burn hotter, and spread faster. These hot, dry conditions increase the likelihood that wildfires will be more intense and burn longer, making them harder to put out.
Highly detrimental to the environment, people’s health and livelihoods, wildfires are destroying forests, agriculture, and communities. Accelerating in their devastation year after year, by mid-September, 2020, five of the 10 largest wildfires in California’s history – including THE largest ever – had happened. 79 large wildfires were still actively burning in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming leveling acreage the size of New Jersey, with one in every 33 acres burned in the state of California. In Oregon, ten percent of the population had been evacuated and critical populations of endangered species and native habitats incinerated. It is questionable whether they will ever recover. Unimaginably, the smoke travelled 3,000 miles to Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland and over the Atlantic.
Extraordinary photographs were published in the New York Times on September 10, 2020.
CURRENT NEWS
KEY RESOURCES
The US is spending billions to reduce forest fire risks – we mapped the hot spots where treatment offers the biggest payoff for people and climate
09/06/23
The U.S. government is investing over US$7 billion in the coming years to try to manage the nation’s escalating wildfire crisis. That includes a commitment to treat at least 60 million acres in the next…
How to pick the right air purifier for your home as wildfire smoke descends
06/08/23
In recent years, wildfire smoke has ravaged large swaths of the United States — from Northern California’s devastating 2020 wildfire season, to the orange-brown haze that has drifted from Canada into the eastern half of…
People who never had to think about wildfire before need to start
06/07/23
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.
Wildfire Weather
05/24/23
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…
Wildfires
09/13/22
Climate change is increasing the size, frequency, and intensity of wildfires as well as the length of the fire season. All fire needs to burn is an ignition source and plenty of fuel. While climate…
As Wildfires Grow, Millions of Homes Are Being Built in Harm’s Way
09/09/22
Across the Western United States, wildfires are growing larger and more severe as global warming intensifies. At the same time, new data shows, more Americans than ever are moving to parts of the country more…
California’s wildfire season is here. How to get ready
08/27/21
The Great Plains have tornadoes. The Southeast has hurricanes. And California has earthquakes and wildfires. More than 4 million acres were burned last year in what was the state’s worst wildfire season to date. So…
Facts + Statistics: Wildfires
09/16/20
As many as 90 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by people, according to the U.S. Department of Interior. Some human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris,…
Wildfires and Climate Change: Visualizing the Connection in Five Sets of Photos and Charts
09/08/20
Every year, millions of acres of land are consumed by fire in the United States. By raising temperatures, melting snow sooner, and drying soils and forests, climate change is fueling the problem. Here’s what we…
Eden Reforestation Project
11/18/19
Eden Reforestation projects reduces extreme poverty and restores healthy forests by employing local villagers to plant millions of trees every year.
Global Forest Watch
09/09/19
Forest Monitoring Designed for Action: Global Forest Watch offers the latest data, technology and tools that empower people everywhere to better protect forests.
MORE NEWS
A megafire raged for 3 months. No one’s on the hook for its emissions.
By Amanda Coletta , Chris Mooney & others 04/20/22
Over nearly three months, it crossed a river, hopscotched containment lines and climbed sagebrush-covered hills, churning into the atmosphere an estimated 38 million tons of greenhouse gases — roughly a year’s worth of pollution from…
Read more Fires, Then Floods: Risk of Deadly Climate Combination Rises
By Raymond Zhong 04/01/22
Global warming is greatly increasing the risk that extreme wildfires in the American West are followed by heavy rainfall, a new study has found, highlighting the need for better preparations for hazards, like mudslides and…
Read more Wildfire near Smoky Mountains prompts mandatory evacuations
03/31/22
Firefighters sought to get a handle Wednesday on a wildfire spreading near Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, amid mandatory evacuations as winds whipped up ahead of a line of strong storms forecast to…
Read more It’s official: Larger, more frequent wildfires are here
By Lina Tran 03/30/22
It’s nearly three months into 2022, and the country has already seen wildfires burning across Florida, Texas, and Colorado. Hundreds of thousands of acres have been scorched, in an unusual start to spring.
Read more NCAR Fire forced evacuation of 8,000 homes in Boulder
By Nate Lynn 03/27/22
About 8,000 homes were ordered to evacuate due to a fast-moving wildfire burning in an open space near the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder on Saturday afternoon.
Read more Older Wildfire Smoke Plumes Can Affect Climate
By Emily Dooley 03/23/22
Aerosols carried in wildfire smoke plumes that are hundreds of hours old can still affect climate, according to a study out of the University of California, Davis.
Read more Recent Megafire Smoke Columns Have Reached the Stratosphere, Threatening Earth’s Ozone Shield
By Bob Berwyn 03/17/22
Scientists researching how the recent spike in extreme wildfires affects the climate say that just a few weeks of smoke surging high into the stratosphere from one intense fire can wipe out years of progress…
Read more Wildfires in Florida Panhandle prompt evacuations
By Alyssa Lukpat and Isabella Grullón Paz 03/05/22
Three fast-moving wildfires in the Florida Panhandle have consumed more than 10,000 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 1,100 homes, the authorities said.
Read more Risk of uncontrollable wildfires will rise and spread globally, UN warns
By Diana Leonard 02/23/22
Uncontrollable wildfires are intensifying with the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a sweeping global report released Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program and nonprofit GRID-Arendal, who said communities are not prepared for…
Read more As drought lingers, larger and more destructive wildfires pose new threats to water supply
By Hayley Smith 02/21/22
Already diminished by drought and extreme heat, California’s water supply will face yet another peril as wildfires continue to incinerate ever larger areas of forested land, according to new research.
Read more California’s largest wildfire of 2022 grows uncontained to 1,800 acres near Bishop
By Gregory Yee 02/16/22
A wind-driven wildfire that broke out near Bishop in the Owens Valley spurred evacuations and grew to 1,800 acres by Wednesday night, officials said, quickly becoming California’s largest fire of the year so far.
Read more Wildfires are becoming more intense at night and lasting longer, study finds
By Kasha Patel 02/16/22
Nighttime-fire intensity in the U.S. West has increased by 28 percent over the past two decades.
Read more Dixie Fire caused by PG&E, Cal Fire says. Fire was second largest in California history
By Dale Kasler and Rosalio Ahumada 01/05/22
Cal Fire said Tuesday that investigators have determined that a tree contacting Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power lines caused last summer’s Dixie Fire, which burned nearly 1 million acres and destroyed more than 1,300…
Read more This Vast Wildfire Lab Is Helping Foresters Prepare for a Hotter Planet
By Henry Fountain 01/05/22
When a monster of a wildfire whipped into the Sycan Marsh Preserve here in south-central Oregon in July, Katie Sauerbrey feared the worst.
Read more California’s forever fire
By Elizabeth Weil 01/03/22
After another devastating year, it’s clear that Californians can’t keep trying to “fight” wildfires. Instead, they need to accept it as their new reality.
Read more 1 big thing: Wildfire hits tight-knit climate science community
By Ben German and Andrew Freedman 01/03/22
The wind-whipped firestorm that tore through parts of Boulder County, Colorado, on Thursday struck at the heart of one of America's top climate science and meteorology research hubs, Andrew writes.
Read more ‘Total devastation’ after wildfire charges through Colorado towns
By Ari Schneider, Jennifer Oldham, Marisa Iati and Emmanuel Felton 12/31/21
More than 500 families may enter a new year having lost their homes after runaway grass fires bore down on the region northwest of Denver on Thursday, but others were returning to their neighborhoods Friday…
Read more Prairies on Fire in Montana Amid a Record December Heat Wave
By Jim Robbins 12/02/21
Record-high temperatures and powerful winds have sparked a series of unusual December prairie fires in Montana, one of a series of late-season fires across the country amid an unusually warm approach to the winter season.
Read more Montana wildfire update for December 01, 2021
By Jess Sheldahl, Kay Erickson, Edward O'Brien 12/02/21
The town of Denton in Fergus County in central Montana is under an evacuation order because of a fast-moving wildfire.
Read more Wildfires in California Killed Thousands of Giant Sequoias
By Vimal Patel 11/20/21
Three wildfires in California in the past 15 months killed or mortally wounded thousands of mature giant sequoias, accounting for an estimated 13 to 19 percent of the world’s population of the majestic trees, officials…
Read more What It’s Like to Fight a Megafire
By M.R.O' Connor 11/08/21
Mike West began working with the Lassen Interagency Hotshot Crew in the summer of 2004, when he was twenty-one years old. On one of his early missions, the crew was dispatched to Arizona, where lightning…
Read more Climate change is now the main driver of increasing wildfire weather, study finds
By Alex Wigglesworth 11/01/21
In a finding that scientists believed was still decades away from becoming reality, California researchers say that climate change is now the overwhelming cause of conditions driving extreme wildfire behavior in the western United States.
Read more The Coming Age of Climate Trauma
By Andrea Stanley 10/27/21
Jess Mercer received a call from her stepmom, Annette, that morning, a little after 8 a.m. “We’re coming,” Annette said, her voice so unrecognizable it sounded foreign. Jess was at her apartment in Chico, Calif.,…
Read more As California burns, PG&E CEO promises: ‘We are going to fix our stuff’
By Sammy Roth 10/14/21
I don’t envy Patti Poppe. In the nine months since she took the helm of Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest and possibly most hated utility, Poppe has seen the firm potentially implicated in…
Read more California’s Alisal Fire has prompted evacuations, road and Amtrak closures
By Aya Elamroussi and Joe Sutton 10/14/21
California firefighters are battling flames and strong winds as they tackle the Alisal Fire, which has shut down a section of the iconic Highway 101 and Amtrak lines in Santa Barbara County. The 15,400-acre fire,…
Read more Wildfire smoke poses serious health hazard. But your indoor air can be kept clean
By Bernard J. Wolfson 10/09/21
The fierce wildfires that broke out across much of the western United States this summer, spreading smoke across hundreds of miles, continue to pose a serious health hazard to millions. More are expected this fall.…
Read more The Secret War Over Pentagon Aid in Fighting Wildfires
By William J. Broad 10/01/21
In July, as wildfires tore through the American West, President Biden met with the region’s governors to find better ways to battle the flames. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California requested use of military satellites that…
Read more 1 of every 8 acres in California has burned in the last 10 years. Here’s where the biggest fires spread — and are burning now
By Paul Rogers and Paiching Wei 09/29/21
If it seems like wildfires in California are getting larger, they are. Nine of the state’s 10 largest wildfires since 1932, when modern records began, have occurred in the past decade. And amazingly, the eight…
Read more Anatomy of a wildfire: How the Dixie Fire became the largest blaze of a devastating summer
By Marisa Iatiand and Dylan Moriarty 09/17/21
For two months, the Dixie Fire has menaced Northern California — stripping forests, forcing thousands from their homes and swallowing most of a Gold Rush-era community.
Read more World’s largest trees under siege from California wildfire as sequoias face new perils
By Hayley Smith and Lila Seidman 09/16/21
Deep inside the heart of Sequoia National Park lies a cathedral-like grove that is home to thousands of towering sequoia trees. Known as the Giant Forest, it draws throngs of visitors each year who come…
Read more In California, Worsening Fires Show Limits of Biden’s Power
By Christopher Flavelle and Zolan Kanno-Youngs 09/14/21
President Biden visited California on Monday to tout his efforts to better protect the state against the raging wildfires that have burned more than two million acres, displaced thousands and pushed responders to the brink…
Read more When Hard Jobs Turn Hazardous
By Sergio Olmos 09/05/21
In early summer, a day laborer laying irrigation lines at a plant nursery just south of Portland, Ore., collapsed to the ground and died. His official cause of death was declared “heat related.”
Read more Devastating Caldor Fire continues to burn toward Lake Tahoe, forcing thousands to evacuate
By Ally Gravina and Diana Leonard 08/31/21
So Clay Cunningham and his wife packed what they could and fled their house in Meyers, Calif., near South Lake Tahoe. But nearly as soon as they reached their daughter’s home, another evacuation order arrived.…
Read more Forest Service officials confirm all California national forests to temporarily close
By Gregory Yee 08/30/21
All of California’s national forests will be closed beginning late Tuesday. The closures will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday and stay in place until the same time on Sept. 17, according to an…
Read more Lake Tahoe Suffocates With Smoke
By Thomas Fuller and Shawn Hubler 08/27/21
Smoke from the Caldor fire is overwhelming one of California’s most iconic regions — and confounding thousands of newcomers who fled there in recent months to escape the coronavirus.
Read more ‘Tinderbox conditions’ fuel fire in Superior National Forest
By AP 08/27/21
Officials in the Superior National Forest said Thursday that the ongoing drought has created “tinderbox conditions” in northeastern Minnesota as firefighters continue to battle an uncontained wildfire, while rain that’s expected to fall in coming…
Read more Fires feast on a national park in Northern California
By Kurt Repanshek 08/26/21
It’s not surprising that Lassen Peak has long been overshadowed by Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Although this summit looms over the Shasta Cascades, in Northern California, the sprawling national park named…
Read more Gaps in US wildfire smoke warning network leave many exposed
By Matthew Brown and Padmananda Rama 08/26/21
Huge gaps between air quality sensors in the western U.S. have created blind spots in the warning system for wildfire smoke plumes sweeping North America this summer, amid growing concern over potential health impacts to…
Read more Wildfire smoke leads to worst air quality on record in Nevada counties
By Celine Castronuovo 08/24/21
Wildfires continuing to spread across California have pushed smoke across to neighboring states, with several Nevada counties reporting their worst air quality index (AQI) levels on record this week.
Read more Caldor fire: crews prepare for high winds that could fan northern California blaze
08/21/21
Crews were digging in and burning out fire lines amid fears that another round of high winds on Saturday could bring renewed fury to a northern California wildfire. “We have a firefight ahead of us…
Read more California’s fires are stretching crews and stranding evacuees.
By Mike Ives 08/20/21
As another day of wildfire fighting began in California on Friday, fire crews were seeing a few glimmers of hope. Smoke from the Caldor fire raging southwest of Lake Tahoe had been helping to choke…
Read more California wildfires destroy homes; winds hamper containment
By Ethan Swope And John Antczak 08/20/21
Dry and windy weather dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California on Thursday. An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a…
Read more Caldor fire threatens more towns as California blazes destroy more than 1 million acres
By Lila Seidman 08/19/21
Before California has even entered peak fire season, the state has already passed a grim milestone: more than 1 million acres burned. A dozen large wildfires — including the monstrous Dixie fire and the destructive…
Read more California builds ‘Noah’s Ark’ as extinction looms – Los Angeles Times
By Louis Sahagún 08/18/21
It was just before sunrise in July when the botanists Naomi Fraga and Maria Jesus threw on backpacks and crunched their way across a brittle alkaline flat in the hottest corner of the Mojave Desert.…
Read more Crews battling California’s mammoth Dixie fire brace for high winds
By Steve Gorman 08/16/21
Strike teams battling a mammoth wildfire displacing thousands of northern California residents braced for a resurgence of high winds on Monday, as the state's largest utility warned widespread precautionary power shutoffs were likely this week.
Read more In a First, U.S. Declares Shortage on Colorado River, Forcing Water Cuts
By Henry Fountain 08/16/21
With climate change and long-term drought continuing to take a toll on the Colorado River, the federal government on Monday for the first time declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, one of the river’s…
Read more Extreme wildfire: deadly, but not for the climate?
08/16/21
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver…
Read more Where Dark Skies Draw Star-Gazers, Wildfire Smoke Spoils the View
By Dave Philipps 08/13/21
The high, lonesome dunes that run up against the Rocky Mountains at 7,500 feet above sea level in southern Colorado are a long, long drive from the closest streetlight, and after dusk, the almost untainted…
Read more The Dixie Fire destroyed this small California town
By Marisa Iati 08/12/21
When the Dixie Fire struck, a wall of flames marched down the mountains, incinerating small businesses and melting homes into ash. Helicopters circled overhead, dropping flame retardant in a desperate attempt to stop the blaze.
Read more Exploding California Wildfires Rekindle Debate Over Whether To Snuff Out Blazes In Wilderness Areas Or Let Them Burn
By Anne Marshall-Chalmers 08/10/21
It was the afternoon of July 4, and in a few hours, fireworks would crackle over drought-parched California, raising concerns about possible fires. But hours earlier, along the California-Nevada border, high in the Sierra Nevada…
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