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Wildfires are driven by a complex combination of forces. Climate change, forest management, changing human behaviors, and wind all play a role in creating the terrifying fires that are roaring across the West and impacting the entire country with smoke.
While wildfires are a natural part of land systems, climate change is dramatically exacerbating the risk of large, catastrophic wildfires as air temperatures increase. In warmer, drier air, such as that under increased climate change, liquid water is more easily evaporated from vegetation. This results in dry, ready-to-burn forests. Fires started in such an environment will expand much more rapidly, and can create their own weather systems and winds that may blow embers out ahead of the actual fire.
But even incredibly dry forests still need an ignition. That's where human behaviors come in. In the latest episode of Go West, Young Podcast, ecologist and data scientist Nathan Mietkiewicz discusses his new analysis that found humans were responsible for 97 percent of wildfires that threatened homes over the last 24 years. As human development expands in the wildland-urban interface, human-caused fires will only become more common.
The way we have managed our forests doesn't help the situation. In the past, the United States has aggressively suppressed wildfires, preventing fuel loads from burning. Over the past hundred years, forests have accumulated plant material that is ready to ignite. According to scientists, the solution to this piece of the problem isn't raking—it's prescribed, or controlled, burns. Controlled patterns of burning can help remove fuel loads from forests.
The scientific community is in agreement on the fact that wildfires are the result of complex interactions between multiple driving factors. Preventing future wildfires will require urgent federal action on multiple fronts, driven by recent and agreed-upon science.
The New West and the Politics of the Environment
Next week on Tuesday, September 22 from 4 - 5 p.m. PT, join Senator Harry Reid for a conversation and the premier of a new documentary: "The New West and the Politics of the Environment." The film explores how Senator Reid set the foundation for a "lowercase green new deal" in the American West using power in new ways to settle water wars with respect for Native Americans, protect wilderness and endangered species, and usher in a just transition to renewable energy.
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The best way to combat wildfires is putting more fire in areas that we know will burn, in times of the year when fire risk is low. Because most of these forests, grasslands, in the West, they need fire, they want fire, they’re conducive to fire. Chaparral, in Southern California, that plant for instance, has turpentine in their leaves. They need [fire] to regrow. And if we remove that from the landscape, we start seeing larger, not only socially destructive fires, but also the fire behaviors that are difficult to suppress if the fire comes close to homes and communities.”
