How Climate Change Drives Bigger Wildfires

Experts say fires like the Smokehouse Creek fire that burned across 850,000 acres in Texas last month are becoming increasingly common due to climate change, reports Dinah Voyles Pulver in USA Today.

“Such huge fires, whether ignited by natural or human causes, are fanned by factors that include the expansion of suburbia into wildlands, land management and firefighting challenges and climate change,” according to researchers from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Over the past two decades, the average number of wildfires per year dropped, but the number of acres burned grew by almost 50 percent. Climate change can exacerbate optimal wildfire conditions and help fires spread farther, faster. “A 2016 study, led by John Abatzoglou, concluded human-caused climate change ‘doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984’ in the western U.S.”

Experts point out that fires have useful natural functions — “The problem arises when houses are in the way.”