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Giant fires are raging in states along the west coast of the United States. Several factors are behind the fires getting huge. – Climate change is leaving its mark on all this, it is changing the environment of fires, says climate professor Craig Clements.
A firefighter puts out a fire in California.
Brand Torr
– Moisture in fuel – trees, shrubs and grass – is lower. So the fuel burns more aggressively, causing fires to spread faster, says Craig Clements, a professor at San Jose State University who specializes in fire meteorology.
Dead trees
A prolonged drought in 2012-2015, as well as 2018, was one of the reasons more than 100 million trees died in California, according to estimates by the country’s forestry authority. The drought stressed the trees and made them susceptible to bark beetle infestation, which becomes the nail in the tree’s coffin.
Dead trees, standing or lying in the forest, are described as a flammable foundation that fueled the gigantic Creek Fire.
– Dead trees are super dry, compared to something that lives and has more moisture. Dead fuel is more flammable and burns very brightly, Clements says.
Longer fire seasons
Less snow in the mountains, the fact that the snow melts earlier in the spring along with higher temperatures in the spring and summer coincides with the increase in wildfires, according to the authority.
– Winter ends earlier and spring begins earlier. We don’t get the late winter rains that we used to have. Then it starts to dry out at the beginning of the year, Clements says.
Topography
In several places in California, it has burned in mountainous areas, and the topography, along with the weather and fuel, is one of the most important factors in causing the fires.
– We have very steep terrain in the canyons, which can be a thousand meters deep. When it starts to burn there, the dynamics of the fire becomes different, it becomes very extreme when it burns in the mountains, says Craig Clements.
Spoiled
An unfortunate circumstance is that there was a lot of wind in several of the extensive fires. Dry winds dry fuel, blow oxygen into fires, and most of all allow incandescent flakes to spread far away and create new point sources. Normally October is the month when it blows the most, on already dry material.
– If there is new wind, there will be big problems. Especially if new fires are lit, then it gets worse. We can exacerbate more devastating fires in October, Clements says.
Heat and flashes
– But at the same time, we had the warmest August yet in the worst in America. So these record-breaking heat waves, it’s hard to say they have anything to do with climate change, he says.
