Wildfire — Statistics

Wildfires — as most of you know — have grown in size, frequency and are more widespread since 2000. A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder took a look at 28,000 fires from 1984 through 2018. That look included satellite images and fire records from state and federal archives.

The conclusion of the study says there have been more fires in the last 13 years than in the 20 before. The number of fires came close to doubling on the West coast and the East coast. Fires quadrupled on the Great Plains.

When looking at the most extreme fires, the average acres burned jumped significantly from 2000 to 2018 when the study ended. Fires are also on the increase in areas that didn’t see fire before the year 2000.

Research scientist and the main author of the research, Virginia Iglesias said climate change may be the cause and could — in the future — cause larger and more frequent fires.

“Projected changes in climate, fuel and ignitions suggest that we’ll see more and larger fires in the future,” she said. “Our analyses show that those changes are already happening.”

Source link: CBS News — https://cbsn.ws/3JsQHDg