Increasing ignitions by people contribute to ‘new normal’ for U.S. wildfire characteristics.
Fires started by people have steadily increased in recent decades—sparking a major shift in U.S. wildfire norms, according to a new CU Boulder-led study. At a national scale, fires are broadly becoming larger and more frequent with fire season lengths extending over time. At the same time, wildfires started by people are more frequent, smaller, less hot and occur over longer seasons than fires started by lightning.
“The leading cause of wildfire ignitions in the United States is shifting away from lightning and towards human activity,” said Megan Cattau, a former CIRES and CU Boulder Earth Lab scientist and lead author on a study published today in Global Ecology and Biogeography. “And it’s looking like this is going to be our new normal.”
The shift towards longer fire seasons with more frequent fires presents new challenges to U.S. wildfire managers and firefighters, the authors say. “We can’t even call it a fire season anymore—it’s nearly all year round,” added Cattau, now at Boise State University.
Continue reading at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Image via Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
