With two million acres already on fire this year, wildfires in the West are starting sooner in the season and consuming more land under climate change.
“A 2016 Climate Central analysis showed that the annual number of large fires has tripled since the 1970s and that the amount of land they burn is six times higher than it was four decades ago,” says Climate Central, adding that the average fire season is 105 days longer than it was in the 1970s.
“While multiple factors, including land use and tree disease, influence fire activity, climate change is playing a role in those trends,” says Climate Central. “A study published in October found that rising temperatures accounted for nearly half of the increase in acres burned, as they helped to dry out forests and extend the length of the fire season.”
With 14 fires, Montana currently has the most large fires of any state, with 270,000 acres ablaze in the Lodgepole Complex fire in the eastern part of the state. Much of the destruction has been on rangeland and of ranch buildings, forcing thousands of cattle to move. Oregon has seven large fires. Nevada has six and California and Idaho both have five.