California Burning Points to More Intense Wildfires

Smoke from fires burning at present in northern California has been detected as far north as Canada, as thousands of firefighters battle to contain blazes that together cover nearly 300,000 acres of forest and shrub wood. And it looks like things are going to get worse.

A new report by the US-based Cost of Carbon Pollution project forecasts that such fires are going to become ever more intense in the years ahead – not just in the western US, but elsewhere round the world, and particularly in areas of southern Europe and in Australia.

The ongoing drought across much of the western US has had a serious impact on the region’s agricultural industry, and has resulted in the build-up of vast amounts of tinder-dry material on the land.

“We haven’t been out of fire season for a year and a half,” a leading fire official told the Washington Post. “There is no end in sight.”

Incidence doubles

The new report says the incidence of wildfires – unrestrained fires that burn predominantly in areas of forests, woodlands, grasslands, peat or shrubs – has doubled in the US since the 1990s.

In total, between seven and nine million acres in the US are burned as a result of wildfires every year – an area equivalent to one-and-a-half times the size of the state of Massachusetts.

“These amounts are expected to increase significantly due to climate change and other factors,” the report says. And, overall, there is likely to be a 50% increase by 2050 in the area of North America burned, with more large and potentially catastrophic wildfires.

Not only will more valuable forest be lost, the fires will also have an increasing impact on the economy - with important industries such as tourism suffering serious losses.

California Burning Points to More Intense Wildfires