The western fire season is growing months longer
In a recent study in the journal Science, Anthony Westerling and colleagues found the length of the fire season in the western US was 78 days longer on average from 1987 – 2003 on average than it was from 1970-1986.1 The trend is linked to earlier snowmelt, and appears to be contributing to an increase in wildfires.
References
- Westerling, A. L., H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, and T. W. Swetnam. “Warming and earlier spring increase western US forest wildfire activity.” (PDF) Science 313, no. 5789 (2006): 940–943. ↩
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