USA TODAY International Edition
Wildfires may be worse this year
As bad as last year’s wildfire season was in the western USA, this season’s could be even worse, federal forecasters warned.
“It’s hard to imagine a repeat of this experience, but this is the potential reality that we face again this year,” said Jeff Rupert, director of the Office of Wildland Fire for the Interior Department, in his opening remarks at a Senate hearing last week.
The catastrophic 2018 wildfire season ravaged California, killing dozens of people, causing billions of dollars in damage and leaving charred ruins where towns had been, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Two of the worst fires were the Camp Fire – the state’s costliest and deadliest – and the Mendocino Complex Fire, which was California’s largest at more than 700 square miles.
“So it’s difficult for me to sit here this morning and say that a challenging year is ahead of us because the wildfires that we’re now experiencing are consistently more destructive than they’ve ever been,” Rupert said Thursday.
AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok said big fires have already been reported in California and in northern areas of British Columbia.
“The forecast shows a threat of fires may continue all the way into October,” he said.
In the heart of the fire season of August and September, “above-normal, significant large fire potential is expected” along the West Coast, the National Interagency Fire Center said in a forecast released early this month.
“Some observers believe the stage is set for fire activity similar to the indescribable damage and staggering loss of life that we saw last year in Northern California,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska, said at Thursday’s hearing.
In addition to the loss of life and property, fires can worsen air quality, AccuWeather said. Larger blazes can affect the air in the Northwest and western Canada.
Devastating fire seasons could be the rule rather than the exception in the decades to come if climate change leads to increased temperatures and reduced rainfall – ideal conditions for large, ferocious wildfires.
Over the next 25 years, the National Climate Assessment predicts the area burned by wildfires will double nationwide as global warming leads to longer wildfire seasons and more frequent droughts.
By the end of the century, models project the burned area in North America could increase two to 5.5 times, the assessment said.