After Disastrous Blazes In NM, AZ, AK, West Braces For Climax Of Another Catastrophic Fire Season

[hatrack]

Following an explosive spring that unleashed major wildfires from the US south-west to Alaska, the west is now bracing for a summer of blazes as the parched landscapes risk turning into tinderboxes. Fire activity is expected to increase in several US states over the coming months, according to a newly released outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), with parts of the Pacific north-west, northern California, Texas, Hawaii and Alaska forecast to be among those hardest hit by fire conditions in the months ahead. The severity of the emergency will depend on four key factors: drought, dried fuels, windy or warm weather, and of course, ignitions. But the climate crisis and human-caused warming has turned up the dial on risk-factors with more intense conditions and a greater frequency with which these conditions align. “No matter which way you slice it, it is going to be bad,” said Jim Wollmann, a meteorologist at the NIFC.

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With the hottest months ahead for most of the west, these stresses may only be the beginning – the desiccated landscapes are primed to burn. Decades of fire suppression has left ample vegetation to burn, while timber harvesting that targets the oldest trees has impacted resiliency in forests. Meanwhile, even after the record rains that flooded parts of Yellowstone and south-central Montana, more than 75% of the west is in drought, with exceptional drought conditions plaguing areas including most of California, the Great Basin and Texas.

While drought is natural in the west, with periods of dryness interspersed with wet ones being part of the region’s climate going back thousands of years, a strong warming trend is exacerbating the problem, said Dr Tim Brown, the director of the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute. Hot droughts, as they are called by climate scientists, are particularly problematic – especially when it comes to fire risks. Heat alone enhances ignition potential, but when combined with drought it “is a major feedback process”, Brown said. Rising temperatures bake moisture out of the landscapes and out of the environment. “If it’s hotter it is drier and the fuels become more flammable.”

Already, scientists are seeing peak levels of dryness in plants. In mid-June, California fire officials said vegetation was as dry in June as it typically is in October, when summer and autumn heat has had time to bake out more moisture. “It is dire across the board,” said Dr Craig Clements, the director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University about drying California landscapes. “We have a lot of accumulation of dead fuels and because of drought it is just going to get worse and worse. We can only expect as we get later in the summer, that the fires will get bigger.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/06/us-west-wildfire-summer

[Native]

1. It's gonna be super bad. Freaks me out.