When 30- And 40-Year Veteran Firefighters Say They've Never Seen Anything Like 2015 Fires . . .
. . . maybe we should listen.
Climate change is worsening the fires that ravage many parts of America each year. Grime-streaked firefighters battling one of the 167 active wildfires currently scorching portions of the US west will tell you as much. What they have encountered on the firelines in the past few years is evidence that everything has changed as a result of global warming. In mid-August, the day after a quick-moving fire first exploded southwest of Boise, Idaho, the blaze more than doubled in size to nearly 79,000 acres in one four hour stretch. Along the way, it sparked a “firenado” that rained hot ash and dirt on firefighters.
Or consider the disturbing talk surrounding the still-smoldering fire named Rocky that this month scorched 70,000 acres near Napa, California: “This fire wants to do whatever it wants,” Jason Shanley, a Cal Fire spokesman, observed, adding “It’s defying all odds. 30 year, 40 year veterans have never seen this before.”
Last year, a raging wild land fire blasted into Yosemite National Park, propelled by a self-generated micro-climate that intensified its unpredictability. Even the idea that there is a definitive fire season has gone up in smoke. The calendar doesn’t matter when flames scoot across a Colorado snowfield in December, as happened in 2012, or blacken foothills in Southern California’s rainy months.
But what firefighters believe is abnormal is just a new normal driven by climate change. Temperatures that spike above long-held norms, record-breaking low-humidity levels, multi-year droughts, tinder-dry vegetation and fierce winds are among the factors fueling these new, more massive infernos. The sooner that firefighting agencies, public officials, policymakers and citizens acknowledge the impact that climate change is having on the frequency, intensity, duration and behavior of fire, the sooner that they will begin to develop new responses to wildland fire in the US west.
EDIT
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/24/firefighters-climate-change-drought