Fire officials aim to douse blazes fast, avoid megafires
BILLINGS, MONT. >> U.S. officials said Thursday they will try to stamp out wildfires as quickly as possible this year as severe drought tightens its grip across the West and sets the stage for another destructive summer of blazes.
By aggressively responding to smaller fires, officials said they hope to minimize the number of socalled megafires that have become more common as climate change makes the landscape warmer and dryer.
A similar approach was taken last year, driven by the pandemic and a desire to avoid the large congregations of personnel needed to fight major fires. Nevertheless, 2020 became one of worst fire years on record with more than 10 million acres of land scorched and almost 18,000 houses and other structures destroyed, according to federal data and the research group Headwaters Economics.
California and the Pacific Northwest were especially hard-hit, including an unprecedented millionacre fire in northern California. Wind-driven conflagrations in Oregon and Washington state burned into urban areas and triggered massive evacuations.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told firefighting personnel Thursday to brace themselves for another challenging year given the historic drought conditions. Haaland and Vilsack wrote in a memo to fire leaders that, “90 percent of the West is currently experiencing drought.”
“These conditions have not only increased the likelihood of wildfires but they have also strained water supplies and increased tensions in communities,” they wrote.
Large fires were active Thursday in Arizona, California and New Mexico and more than a half-million acres already have burned this year nationwide. The year-to-date figure is well below the 10-year average.
But the worsening drought is expected to bring with it higher fire danger that will spread from the Southwest into California, Nevada, the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains by summer, officials said.