If I were Canadian I'd start building a wall now.
1
Droughts and wildfire have been a reality in the West forever. Native American practiced controlled burns Pre-Columbus. The sudden and dramatic disappearance of the Anazazi living around Chaco Canyon was likely due to an extreme drought.
The huge difference between past and present fires would seem to be their intensity. Today fires are burning so hot that instead of lightly passing through and reinvigorated the land it's obliterated it to such a degree that native vegetation has a hard time recovering and in too many cases will never return. There really are no good excuses for Americans dithering over whether climate change is man made or not. It's truly a kind of madness. Methane spewing from a thousand fracked wells in Arizona alone is ramping up dramatic climate change now. While we ugly Americans bicker over these inalienable truths the elephant (climate) in the room (earth) is apt to trample us.
4
Global warming discussion over the last decades:
Scientists: The world is getting warmer.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
(Repeat for 20 years)
Capitalists: OK, it is.
Scientists: And it's our fault.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
(Repeat for 20 years)
Capitalists: OK, it is.
Scientists: This is what we should do about it.
Capitalists: It's too late to do anything about it.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
Capitalists: No, it's not.
Scientists: Yes, it is.
And so on.....
8
As someone who lives about 10 miles from the 416 fire and has inhaled smoke for the past few days and nights, a thought. Beyond global warming denial, conservatives have another something to apologize for, as I will now for politicizing the valiant firefighting efforts here. But the conservatives who rage and scream about bloated budgets and "deep state" bureaucrats - while slashing taxes - should note well that this fire is being fought by government employees from around the area and beyond. I just saw some Denver police cars and a hotshot crew truck from outside Colorado. These brave people, public servants in the best sense, are reaching the fire on Forest Service roads and evacuating residents on the Colorado roads paid for by our local, state, and federal taxes. Remember that the next time you think about voting for a tax-slashing Republican. And if conservative ideologues weren't stonewalling research efforts and cutting taxes to the rich and corporations, we might actually have a better idea of how to combat the warming and drought conditions that have made this summer so perilous.
8
Wildfire season is always cause for concern and certainly some recent summers have produced many large and damaging fires.
We need to avoid hyperbole and politicization of the basic facts here. Even beginning with the premise that there are only two seasons in the Mountain West is not accurate nor helpful to the discussion. This is certainly not the case in Bozeman, where the author says she lives/(lived)?
If you want change to occur, it would likely be more helpful if you presented the basics more accurately. This link shows the four-seasonal temperature pattern still exists in this mountain town. (link to average temperature data at Montana State University in Bozeman)
https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?mt1044
There are areas of the West with different recent histories, so some understanding of the differences across a broad region are worth discussing. As are other factors, including continuous development, forest management, pine beetle, human-caused fires, and even some randomness.
It's a lot easier to just blame Republicans and driving cars, but that isn't going to get the discussion going anywhere.
1
WE ALL BREATHE THE SAME SMOKE I remember a wildfire season when the smoke reached the East coast, making breathing difficult for everyone, especially those of us who suffer from asthma and allergies. Another time, I had the misfortune to visit Northern California and Oregon during a wildfire, when it was impossible to avoid the smoke. Again, I was choking. The cycle of wildfires is predicted to become more severe and prolonged due to global climate change. Where there's smoke there's fire. And where there's fire there's global climate change.
2
For most of my life, my summer vacations were spent hiking in the West - the Rockies, but mostly the Sierras. Until about 15 years ago, I or we planned trips well in advance. We bought food, maps, plane tickets, etc with a lot of certainty about the trip ahead.
That's changed in the past decade or two. The summer trips are determined - at the last minute - by what part of the west is ablaze and closed to hikers. Most often the hike is planned the day before at the Ranger Station.
Sometimes we'll be on the trail, only to encounter a sign that the trail ahead is closed, and we'll need to take a detour. Sometimes a ranger will show up in camp and tell us to get out. And sometimes the fire will be 50 miles away, but the air will be a cloud of smoke, and the sun will be a red circle at mid day. Fellow hikers will tell stories of why they are on this trail - often because their preferred destination is on fire.
Something has changed in the wild, and it's not just ticks.
6
At the present, worthy concerns such as those stated in the excellent article have no place in our government. To be sure, the fires have became all to common but the lack of caring from Congress has become far worse.
We are undergoing a tragic alteration in our priorities and it's ruining America.
1
This culture may be past the point that “shame” has any remedial value. But one wonders if a durable monument, of great prominence, raised to record and display the names of persistent and influential climate deniers — cut in solid stone —- so that they will know in their own time that they will be shamed before their own great-grandchildren, might do at least a little good. It should be placed near the sea, but at least 30 feet above high tide.
I don't think people grasp how thoughtless "don't live in forested areas" advice really is. During fire season, which is now all year long, very small fires quickly grow to thousands of acres, including cities, suburbs, and major highways. There are no "safe," non-forested areas. The danger to lungs happens twice: first, smoke, during the fire, and later, whenever high winds blow and toss fine particles into the air, where they are promptly inhaled. Asthma becomes chronic and severe. As the governor of California, Jerry Brown, has said, "this is the new normal."
5
And in Southern California there is only one season - fire season. Witness January 2018. January, formerly classified as winter.
2
Sarah, thank you so much for this line: "...a humdrum contest between two major party presidential tickets made up of three qualified, reasonable public servants and Dan Quayle..."—it really made my morning.
3
I visited Yellowstone in 1965 as a 12 year old dumb enough to swim in Lake Yellowstone. I visited it before and after the big fire snowmobiling through the park in peace and serenity with barely a human to be found.It was -25F which kept the city slickers out. I imagined how sacred the area was to the Native Americans who understood the connection between humans and Mother Earth. Fire and rebirth, the cycle of life. I was face to face with the buffalo and the elk, tame as my pet dog Hollywood back home. Such noble creatures. Humans can’t figure out how to live in harmony with nature, corrupt politicians corrupted by capitalist greed. Why would anyone want to destroy the National Park system to be abused for oil and minerals. We don’t need more desecration of the earth to make a few people filthy rich. We need a spiritual rebirth to respect the planet before it’s too late for humans. Mother Earth May discipline her recalcitrant and disrespecting children in unknown ways, but she will prevail.
6
Will we end up like the planet Mars? Charred to a soiless and oxygenless condition?
1
If the Trump administration, and this Republican congress would just privatize the US Forest Service, sell all the public lands these fires are on, I bet the free market could clear cut these forests in no time. Then we wouldn't even be having these fires.
2
..."When the fires come, we all breathe the same smoke" is a suitable description of the ravages of man-made climate change, accelerated by our own coal/chemical polluters (as invited by unscrupulous Trump and his faithful lap dog Pruitt), where the ill effects ( wild fires, as stated, but also the increased frequency and ferocity of droughts and floods) become quite 'democratic' (we all are affected...but especially the poorer countries, unable to fend from harm, an injustice created by rich countries like ours).
3
When these kinds of environmental disasters hit, Americans who live in the West and voted for Donald Trump's, Ryan Zinke's and Scott Pruit's brand of authoritarianism and environmental destruction should examine how each of these men respond to scientific facts about climate change. As a nation we are facing with a number of major environmental problems. Our response to these needs to be with the best available science, by real scientists. In the mean time, during the long hot fire season, those of you who voted for Donald Trump should breath deep and enjoy.
3
Please repeat this phrase whenever possible, to denormalize lack of action on our existential crisis: "Climate emergency".
Addressing the CAUSE of the climate emergency must not be swept aside as turn our attention to adaptation to our warming world.
We cannot allow politicians to don a climate hero cape if they speak & act only of adaptation and ignore the politically difficult reality of mitigaton: we must transition off of fossil fuels extremely quickly, and we must stop digging up the stuff.
3
Good grief, we've turned the forests of North America into museum pieces. The fire load in our forests is off the charts. If people are going to insist in living in forested areas, fire (sorta) comes with territory. I love a young forest, fire doesn't.
2
Much of this is due to a century of fire suppression, and Smoky the Bear. But what do we do now? The forests have to burn, but they are too dense to burn - they have to be thinned, either through a catastrophic fire, managed logging, dead and downed tree recovery, or lots of composting - the first is quick and devastating, the middle two damage the landscape and rivers, the last one is incredibly expensive and time consuming.
Honestly, fire seems the best, quickest, cheapest solution to the clogged state of the forests.... OK, some homes burn - that's what fires safes and home insurance is for - the owners chose to buy there, and its their responsibility to clear a defensive space, install a metal roof, and Be Prepared. (granted, I've only done 1.5 of those things at my house on the Urban-Wildland Interface...)
2
And yet, where are our climate control candidates? Not to mention our peace and justice candidates? A focus on jobs and the economy aren't the whole story. A big hello from across the Gallitans, and, Sarah, please write more on this subject.
2
Gee, Sarah, I hope that you noticed that PEOPLE have started them.
Vast forest stands in the intermountain west have suffered from significantly increased bark beetle damage (think, endless acres of dead stands). The natural control of this beetle was long periods of -10/-20 degree F weather, which don't seem to occur much anymore...
ALL of these endless acres WILL BURN!
9
The climate change "hoax" effects Red states too.
5
Once in a very long while, I read an article that shines in the quality of the writing this is one of these precious diamonds. Please NYT more from this writer.
9
We scarcely can stop current global environmental change but we can gradually slow some of it, and its impacts, through efficiency and modest life styles. But knowing what smoke is doing to health is an urgent issue, particularly the tiny sub-micron particles that EPA scarcely recognizes/measures in their air quality indices. Basic satellite visible images show how smoke lingers in valleys even while the westerly winds roar above. And, how far smoke propagates (and, even loess ...fine soil... from China to Seattle). Space/time mapping needs to put this on the front page: for now buy a HEPA air filter, lobby for increased funding for both health research, air quality observations and fire control. And realize what those fine particles, embedded forever, deep in your children's lungs, will do to their vitality and life expectancy. As usual, the poor suffer the most.
5
I was there in 88 visiting the Tetons and Yellowstone and recall the black smoke in the distance growing ever closer. It was something else indeed.
5
Last fall, Northern California suffered the most destructive California wildfire ever, which destroyed more than 8,000 structures, most of them homes. In December, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, where I live, suffered the largest California Wildfire in history. It burned nearly 300,000 acres. Schools closed because of the smoke, businesses closed because there were no customers. Yet it took 28 days after the fire's start for the Trump administration to declare our community a public disaster area allowing cities and counties to request federal resources. It took another two weeks and a deadly mudslide for the administration to declare the individual disaster designation needed for FEMA and the SBA to come in and offer loans and grants to homeowners and small business owners who'd lost their homes and livelihoods. 66 people died in these tragedies. The Republican Party and the Trump administration's willful refusal to acknowledge the effects of climate change is not only ignorant, it's killing us.
18
Your handle of “left coast” says it all. I was surprised that any federal aid came through for these fires. Whatever the current administration and their lackeys in Congress can do to get back at you for your politics they will. You’ve been written off by Washington DC unless it’s to wreak revenge.
2
Judging by the reactions of elected officials, as long as the economy is growing there is no need for action on anything else.
26
Another area (along with alcohol and drug education and basic civics) that should incorporated into public school education. The more people know about fire behavior and human risk, the better it is for all of us.
10
Climate change is real, as even many global warming critics admit. Arguing about whether man contributes to it, while doing nothing, is stupid. There are actions that can be taken to mitigate what is happening. Unfortunately mass migrations may be an outcome and no one I know of is actually offering public policy solutions. It's like watching a slow wreck.
As a Canadian, I expect to see more people from the US head our way over the next many decades. We have more freshwater and cooler on average. But if there is a Trump style presidency then, we'd expect the US to annex us, by force if necessary.
Maybe we should emulate NK to protect ourselves! (just kidding).
14
Did you know that Ontario plans to build a fleet of advanced nuclear reactors that will reduce Ontario's carbon footprint by 37% in the next 20 years and 80% by 2050. The U.S. needs to take a lesson from Ontario.
6
Despite living there for 33 years, I didn't know that. However a Trump-lite has been elected Premier much to my disgust. He will abandon all climate change initiatives, like all conservatives. His election as leader was a fluke and having 3 major parties running meant that he won with roughly 40% of the vote. The other 60% are sold global warming action supporters.
you are going to have as many fires under a Democratic administration as a Republican one. They are wild fires. They are really not punishment for mankind's sins. If that were the case, the entire world would now be burnt to a crisp.
2
I'm not implying that nature is a sentient being, but yes, we are all being punished for dumping large amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and the punishment is just beginning.
4
Shouting ‘Fire!’ in the Burning West. A wider political metaphor.
9
Last summer, the fires came here, too. There was so much ash, it painted the sky what pantone calls, millennial pink. Every segment of our government is completely unprepared for our future. I can understand why the libertarians don't like government: it fails to do it's job.
7
No, the problem is people like to elect candidates that promise they will prevent government from doing its job.
15
And it is hard to believe how many wildfires are started by people throwing cigarette butts out the car window.
4
Maybe the car companies should go back to putting ash trays in their cars?
It is called the "smoker's package." It is about a $30 option.
So few people smoke today that it was no longer practical to put cigarette lighters and ash trays in every car, the same way we no longer have cassette players or even CD players in cars.
But if having them in the car prevents forest fires from tossed cigarettes, isn't that a worthwhile expenditure for the car companies?
I hear the comments about when wildfires were part of the ecosystem. I hear how our fire suppression, thinning etc is a cause of more fires.
Here I so no. 80% of all wildfires are caused by us people. NOT LIGHTNING!! Campfires, vehicle sparks, target shooting, illegal tannerite and fireworks, smoking are the causes.
One Less Spark...One Less Wildfire
http://www.readyforwildfire.org/One-Less-Spark-Campaign
9
Ot “more fires”. More intense and destructive fires as a result of Smokey Bears misguided approach to forest management these past 100 years. Oh, and climate change too.
It's the climate, stupid.
Until climate change becomes one of the top voting priorities, right up there with the economy, we will continue to deal with this urgent and permanent crisis far too slowly.
Each of us can help shift the culture by choosing to burn less fossil fuel: conspicuous nonconsumption. We take our social cues from each other, and actions speak louder than words.
18
1988 was also the year the IPPC was founded. Perhaps you should care about Republicans and Democrats as long as Republicans refuse to recognize global warming.
6
I would only add to this that, for much of the interior intermountain or Rocky Mountain West, we really don't generally have much of a winter any more.
8
Global warming in the Middle East/North Africa has led to drought, food shortages, civil wars and mass migrations. Now the same sequence is beginning in the Middle West/North America.
It is not surprising that several US billionaires have bought estates here in the New Zealand mountains, where global warming is causing more evaporation from the South Pacific Ocean, bringing wetter summers and more snow in winter.
10
When I drove across the country to visit an uncle who's even older than I am (I'm 70) you could smell the Yellowstone fire from 200 miles away. I don't doubt for a minute that one could smell it in Missoula ...
6
The following is a NYT article that displays several maps about how Americans think of global warming. Those who are directly and personally effected by the effects of global warming are becoming more aware and supportive of changes we collectively need to make.
https://nyti.ms/2mL0o4J
When your own house is under constant threat of destruction, the tired and debunked arguments so often trotted out like "there have always been forest fires in the Midwest" ring hollow.
9
Does the GOP in Montana believe in global warming? You mention new systems and a new "fire culture". Maybe when the GOP discovers science we can move forward but until then all we have is denial and blame targeted at, wait, Obama. Oh, and the head of Yellowstone being forced to move a few months from retirement.
13
And the good people in most noncoastal western states vote for Republicans and for Trump who are fully owned by the fossil fuel industry and whose policies will make climate change worse.
We get the government, and thus the environment, that we deserve.
9
If we're gonna build and live in fire zones, pragmatically, we're gonna hafta rethink our strategy, and begin building differently. Exposing combustible building materials to high heat and embers from wildfires is a recipe for (continued) disaster.
Concrete, for example, doesn't like to burn -- plus, berming a home into a hillside exposes less building to fire, and can help maintain a more stable, livable indoor temperature, year round.
But then, there's still all that smoke....
5
It is difficult to care when I do not matter and those that do could care less about anything other than money.
8
All part of the earths changing evolution and we're all subject to it.
Nothing humans can do, it's far bigger and older than us. It's not good or bad....it just is. Any attempt by humans to change the climate of earth is just an over inflated sense of our importance here as temporary guests of Mother Earth.
We are meaningless and inconsequential to the big picture.
Enjoy you short time here, move to another area if necessary but enjoy all the beauty she still provides for us.
1
There are at least 25,000 people actively and globally engaged in changing negative attitudes with scientific data, personal experiences, and economic solutions such as converting to 100% renewable energy resources. You say, "nothing humans can do." Wrong, thanks to the thousands of fire crews who risk their lives daily to save people, animals, forests, homes, cities, habitats and "all the beauty" left on this planet.
6
Humans don't have to be everywhere. Let Nature win. Then we can find our place again.
3
When it the fire comes, expect no help. If Trump and his swamp creatures respond at all, it will be to show up for a photo op, throw plastic water bottles at a recruited crowd and leave. Remember Puerto Rico. Maybe folks out west should put their federal taxes in escrow against the day their world goes up in smoke.
9
I wish I could agree with you about winter, however, in the Rockies of southern CO and northern NM, you couldn't really posit that we had one this past year, perhaps not for the past two. Scary stuff — one greets spring with a mix of joy and severe trepidation about fire. Clearly, this is likely to continue, given the concern-with-inaction on climate change.
13
Living with the constant threat of wildfire is something we in the east can't really appreciate - though hurricanes, tornadoes, and Nor'easters aren't exactly a picnic either.
I was recently reading an account of someone who lives in fire country, and their 'summer style'. Being ready to throw bags in the car and run at a moment's notice. Making sure the animals are taken care of. Listening for the sound of planes making runs on fires - because sometimes that's the only warning they get. Phones go out when fire knocks out power lines; radio/tv warnings are only good if you happen to be listening.
"Yesterday morning I awoke at sunrise with a heart-pounding mind-racing urgency. Instantly, I went from dreamy sleep to wide awake mentally triaging what to do first — just because a helicopter flew over my home. Aircraft rarely fly overhead. Because my home area isn’t on regular flight paths, months pass without the sight or sound of a plane. When I hear one, the most likely reasons are either (1) someone needs rescuing from the canyon, usually a drunk young man who stumbled off a trail; or (2) WILDFIRE!"
Read about it here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/8/1769700/-Daily-Bucket-My-summe...
In the age of climate change and the anthropocene, we are all going to have to make adjustments.
5
I. too, have lived in Montana most of my 75 years and have never experienced the smokey skies that we have had to deal with the last 5 years or so. We used to be able to open the windows at night and get a nice cool breeze. Now we get smoke. It has gotten so bad that I finally put a hepa-charcoal filter and air conditioning in my house, and have to stay inside for days at a time.
The effects of Global Warming are seen everywhere...... in the Western U.S, and even in the Antarctic. A recent report showed that the rate of ice melt there went from 70 billion tons per year to 241 billion tons per year over the last 20 years! That created enough water to cover Texas 13 feet deep!
THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THERE IS A SOLUTION. It is fourth-generation advanced reactors like GE's PRISM reactor. It can utilize the waste (i.e. spent nuclear fuel, or SNF) that has accumulated at nuclear power plants around the country and turn it into 500 year's worth of clean, safe, and affordable electricity for America.
Our politicians and the Koch brothers have successfully kept this 25 year-old solution under wraps, but now is the time to bring it into the open. One highly placed energy executive once said, if we generate all U.S. electric power with PRISM reactors, then "the atmosphere would essentially be free of pollution from utilities."
We have the technology to slow, and perhaps halt the effects of Global Warming in the next 30 years. The question is will we?
17
I forgot to add that this is an ideal way to dispose of spent nuclear fuel that exists at every nuclear reactor in the country. Basically, PRISM is the perfect "waste to energy solution" for solving the problem of high level radioactive waste and Climate Change as well.
1
Great read. Once the season of smoke in SoCal was limited to two or three months in the fall. Now the season of smoke is year round.
11
Emphatically agree with all the commenters below who noted the absence of climate change in this piece as a cause of increased wildfire activity! Globally, we are doing literally nothing to stem climate change. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions are still rapidly rising despite the Paris Accords. Most nations are not on track to meet their targets so get used to even longer fire season, more fires, more extensive fires, get used to increasingly dryer conditions in the West, and begin considering how long the West will still be habitable under these conditions.
13
Did you miss that she said:
"... this neck of the woods’ multiplying struggles with the effects of global warming ..."?
I hate it when people say things like: " get used to increasingly dryer conditions in the West...."
I can assure you Lisa, that there are technical solutions for Global Warming, but you will not find them by listening to Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt, or the Koch Brothers.
2
“Although many plants, animals and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming.” With the greater intensity and size of these wildfires, the 'response' most likely will not be a positive one. And our "...multiplying struggles with the effects of global warming -- and drying" will continue to escalate.
Thank you for shouting 'Fire!' -- and I hope this year you win the bet with your sister on the date of the first snowfall in Bozeman.
5
The problem will be worse when the snow doesn't come.
3
"Hope" and prayers won't get the job done, Jesse. But, we do have the knowledge and technology to slow and perhaps halt Global warming. The question is will we?
2
the climatic conditions are very serious we must be aware of how we use this resource.
3
The other day I was wondering how long people would continue to live in desert areas when the areas are running out of water (water drawn from the underground 'fossil' water). And then I started to think about when the people would start moving away from areas where the rainfall is no longer enough (Capetown). And what about those places where the heat is now killing people (American Southwest, India) and were are those people going to go? Now I can also think about when/where the people in the American West will go when they can no long tolerate 3 seasons of smoke pollution. To the East Coast? We face increased hurricanes and rising sea levels. The West Coast? They are burning too. Where will all these people go?
23
And perhaps most of all, the refugees from rising seas: Bangladesh, Pacific Islands, Norfolk, VA, Miami Beach ...
4
Wyoming senators calling for government help? They usually say we don't need government.
42
When Napa and Santa Rosa burned an hour north of us you could see the air move in twinkly Van Gogh Starry Night patterns whenever a breeze blew. One is not supposed to see the air.
And I wondered whose lives I was breathing in.
18
No where in this article is mention of Climate Change and its effects on the incidence of wildfires. Amazing to say the least. Without an increasing discussion of the effects of Climate Change articles like this are grossly missing an opportunity to address why the instances of wildfires, more intense and more frequent, are happening in the first place.
Let's get this straight. The instances of rising temperatures has been associated with man made activities that result in more carbon being released into the atmosphere resulting in droughts and thus, drier vegetation. And when this happens and is accompanied by more frequent winds-stronger as well- and then add in earlier springs with snow melt drying up earlier and thus elongating the dry season.
It's a cycle, year to year. And the occasional rainy year is outnumbered by the dry years, with the rainy years providing more vegetation that will dry-up during droughts and just add to the cycle of increasing wildfires.
The geographical area the author of this article is writing about is the home of individuals with a conservative view and may be why the author didn't address Climate Change. I get that. But the stakes are great and addressing the issues affecting us all must bring out the best in us and sometimes that takes us painting with a broader brush stroke, even if actions like that step on peoples' toes.
26
Check out the paragraph that begins "That said..." She mentions "warming" it in a quote with the implication of more frequent fires.
Dear Ms. Vowell: You like history, so study it. North America (not just the West) has ALWAYS had a fire season. Aboriginal people torched landscapes regularly for many reasons, and fire has been an intrinsic part of the continent since the retreat of the ice sheets, probably longer. It is crucial to understand this history because it helps scientists understand that we are looking at disturbance ecologies--assemblages of plants and animals intrinsically shaped by the regular presence of anthropogenic fire. That legacy is important for understanding why the impulse to suppress fire for more than a century only exacerbated our problems with fighting fires that have ever more fuel (a real westerner knows what the term "ladder fuels" means) than in the past. Climate change matters, but so does the deep past. And just to make easterners feel a lot less smug, the same problems inhere in humid America, where forests have expanded rapidly over the last century. I fear the conflagration that could happen in a city like Philadelphia come the first dry, windy August. Just think Chimney Tops 2. Look it up. Worry.
13
Yes, forest fires are a natural occurrence.
But the fires of which the author addresses are increasing in frequency and intensity and this must be discussed.
32
merc, you're missing the point: fire is neither natural or unnatural. Humans have shaped our fire ecologies forever, either by deliberately torching the landscape or by trying to suppress fire. The increased frequency and intensity of fire cannot be understood simply by reference to climate change because the history of firing and fire suppression is an intrinsic part of the ecologies that fuel modern fires.
Sorry, but you missed the point. Fires, though a natural part of many forest ecosystems, are now larger and more intense. They are no longer "natural" in that sense. What is needed is more management of some of the forestland to reduce fire effects--or much of the forest will prematurely change to brush land.
A little data would help the article. USFS fire fighting costs in 1995 were 16% of the USFS budget. In 2018, it is over 55% of the budget. Between 2000 and 2015, the budget for forest management (including thinning, prescribed burns, wildland urban interface management) dropped 25%. The number of employees in the USFS dropped from 19,000 two decades ago to 11,000 today. Changing climate adds to the problem. The era of calls for smaller government and smaller budgets is not helping either. Add to that, the number of people who do not make the effort to understand where they live and how they live in forested areas and make their homes and surroundings safer is a total recipe for disaster.
55
Thank you for this beautifully written but frightening article.
It's similar in Australia. Our bushfires start earlier (late September) and finish six months later. In Western Australia there was a bushfire a couple of weeks ago - in late autumn!
Fires are getting fiercer and behaving in ways that are unprecedented. The window for winter burn-offs to reduce the fuel loads of the eucalyptus forests is shorter and shorter. I lived through a fire in 2003 which burnt down 30cm into the soil for lack of any fuel. The thought of an even drier and hotter future leading to even greater fires is terrifying.
38
My son lives on the 9800 block of Portola Rd. in Beverly Hills, Ca. A landscape crews, apparently using a weed wacker to clear brush on Tuesday, apparently caused a fire that began to spread quite rapidly. The fire quickly spread and the area was evacuated. My son had returned to his home before the evacuation to rescue his cat and the smoke and flames were not that far from his house. Fortunately there was a rapid response and the fire turned away from his street out towards a more open area where crews were able to contain it before it destroyed any structures. Yet, some 50 acres or more were burned in a relatively built up area. All it takes is one spark.
30
In eastern Washington, the first date on which my kids' soccer practice gets cancelled for poor air quality due to smoke seems to inch closer and closer to the beginning of summer every year. Summer camping trips are planned with fingers crossed that fires won't require cancellation. It seems crazy to consider picking up and moving to live somewhere without smoky summers, but if my kids weren't middle schoolers, it would be a strong consideration in our family.
17
Nice piece, great writing, real important issue. Whatever they pay you, it isn't enough. I hope you get featured more often!
71
Yes, and thanks for the humor too!
Climate Collapse is not getting covered.
A couple of years ago, the American people would have seen and heard lots of front page media stories about what is happening.
But the veil of smoke issuing from Constitution Collapse in Washington has eclipsed the climate.
How many Americans know that the 2017 wildfire season in California was the worst on record? A total of 9,133 fires burned 1,381,405 acres.
How many Americans know that the forests in the Southwest (which include millions of acres of beautiful ponderosa pine) are predicted to be gone by 2050? The oldest known ponderosa is 843 years old! These trees survived hundreds of years of wildfires, dry periods, wet periods--but they may not survive us.
If you think the migration out of North Africa is bad, wait until millions of people in the Southwest are on the move. All it would take is for the entire country to keep staring at Washington and spending money on wars, and walls, and weapons instead of on conserving WATER.
Yes, it would be far more useful to have 24/7 media coverage on desalination, water capture, water recycling, water transport, water this and water that, so that we can at least survive what is coming long enough to figure out more permanent fixes.
You can't drink Washington.
195
Yes, the lack of media coverage on these fires amazes and frightens me.
1
Thank you for this important coverage of the new normal for the western USA. I empathize deeply, as I have been stranded most of last year and much of this year in my house due to wildfire smoke--I am asthmatic. Like a canary in a coal mine, I am the first of my social groups to be incapacitated by smoke.
In New Mexico we are experiencing the same kind of cataclysmic wildfires as other southwestern states, but for some reason there is less media coverage of our fires.
Global warming is happening now, and those of us who are sick or old are the first to be affected. I expect to die sooner than non-asthmatics. I wish more people would take climate change seriously and take action to stop it. Otherwise we will continue to live in a constant inferno in the west and catastrophic floods and snow in other parts of the country.
60
I watched NBC News this evening. The 3-minute story on wildfires burning across the western U.S. failed to mention the underlying cause. Extreme drought has gripped a wide swath of the interior West, including parts of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, for a decade. It's the 1300's again, except that his drought may be man-caused. Mix in an exploding population in every one of those states (with the possible exception of New Mexico), and the results are huge, dangerous, and expensive-to-fight forest and range fires.
64
Thank you for the fine word picture of the way things are becoming.
None of us, in the end, will be exempt from the destructive changes now gaining force.
We could, however, strive to work together to solve problems, rather than trying to find victims to blame.
38
"When the fires come, we all breathe the same smoke." I'm afraid too many Americans either do not comprehend or simply dismiss the fact that what is happening beyond their neighborhood will impact them, if not now, someday. Melting ice, shrinking and disappearing glaciers, beetle infested pine forest, rain storms that fail to move, and forest fire after forest fire are indications of a changing climate. Our failure to appreciate the impact a changing climate has on all of us affects a serious response that seeks a more immediate desire to curtail CO2 levels.
76
Soon my husband and I will be setting off on the Great Northern, from Chicago to Seattle with a few days in Glacier. A trip I made as a child with my family, to visit my grandparents in Spokane -- a trip we postponed from last September (since I had the sense to realize that, remote as the fires were from our route, smoke would ruin our trip). We will surreptitiously scatter my father's ashes (they have have been around too long in my study, and what will our children make of that box should we die too soon?), somewhere along the tracks, probably in Glacier. (We shall see -- we'll wing it.) My father grew up in Glasgow and Great Falls in the 1920's and 1930's and worked as a gandy dancer on the Great Northern during his college summers. His family camped, fished, hunted, and hiked in Glacier. I heard many stories about it all, growing up in NJ. What stories! (Those about Indians most fascinated me. The Indians around Great Falls did not like the railroad.) But never any stories about fires. Cremation requires very high heat.
17
I live in Montana and literally have a list of indoor projects for smoke season. Last year I got two rooms painted. This year the kitchen gets a facelift.
22
A year and a half ago, my wife and I purchased a lot just across the highway from the Purgatory resort. Being an engineer I thought I considered everything: availability of utilities, proximity to a city, sufficient land to feel we lived in the country, view of mountains and, yes, susceptibility to fire. But what I really didn't expect was the 416 fire actually occurring. Some, I among them, feel the fire was caused by embers from the Durango-Silverton coal fired train, one of the big attractions to the area. In the end nature gets the best of us. as volcano eruptions go, but human impact certainly adds to the fury.
26
A subject I would like to see covered is the contracts given to aerial fire fighting tankers. The money being made by these companies is nothing but outrageous and one has a former interior department big shot working for them (I wonder why). The fact that the fire retardant they use is over $4 a gallon is suspect also. How about a investigation?
38
In my planning for wildfire preparations I never considered the smoke. The fires here in the Sonoma Valley last fall had everyone scrambling for N95 masks. The smoke covered hundreds of square miles, effecting the entire population of the greater Bay Area. We fled to Stinson Beach where the air was, at times, as bad or worse than it was closer to the fire. For many, the health impact of that smoke will be felt for a long time.
32
And Mother Nature, who always bats last, is just getting warmed up....
1
I live in a Firewise Community in the Wildland Urban Interface. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get people out of the "denial" phase that a wildfire could happen to them. We even watched one come over the ridge last September and if it had been windier, our community would have suffered. Wildfires are just going to get more common and more dangerous.
24
I live in California and am very worried about the potential for a fire season that is even worse than last year. One thing that I have been urging people to do, is to carry a fire extinguisher in their vehicles. Cars often spark fires and if one sees the fire before it has a chance to spread, it could easily be stopped before people and animals die, or homes are destroyed. I believe that most truck drivers have to carry extinguishers in their trucks but no there is no such requirement with regard to vehicles. We all should take some responsibility to help stop our states from burning up!
86
In addition to fire suppression there needs to be substantial resources put into forest restoration with more prescribed burns and responsible, sustainable, mechanical thinning...ie forest harvesting for fire resiliency as well as profit. This is not a call to fire up the chain saws and bulldozers, leaving thousands of acres of bare, eroding hillsides.
I'm happy to see the "control burns" because I know that's one less area to burn come August. In my area (southern Oregon) there are thousands of acres that need restoration work for fire resiliency.
45
Years ago, I recommended to the Forest Service that they should do some controlled burns of the dead beetle-killed pines in the winter, when the fire can actually be controlled. The groundcover is protected by snow and colder temperatures help keep the fires from running wild.
Yet there was no response from the Forest Service who seemed to be uninterested.
Your idea is a good one, but as the parent of a CO/WY wildland firefighter, I can tell you that the majority of the firefighters are let go by Thanksgiving, and they start work again around the end of April. Your FS office in Steamboat has a very small winter staff; there just isn't the man/womanpower to do the kind of work you're talking about. I think what would make sense is to have the "fuels crew" people on staff year-round. FS employees are people who love the great outdoors, and they would probably jump at the chanced to strap on some snowshoes and cut down some standing dead trees. Not to mention that they would probably jump at the chance to have year-round employment and health insurance!
Fires are part of the natural ecosystem and were most likely much more prevalent in the West before humans arrived. What has changed is fire suppression, which leads to bigger, hotter fires when they finally occur. Also, people have built homes in places where fires are inevitable, leading to greater demand for fire fighters to protect private property at taxpayer expense.
While climate change alters fire ecology, I think it would be incorrect to say climate change is the most important factor in fire trends in the West.
28
"I think it would be incorrect to say climate change is the most important factor in fire trends in the West". Thank you for your opinion but please know that published science contradicts that view (Westerling et al., 2006 for starters and many others).
1
Tell that to the wildlife that has perished
1
For millennia, every year has been a wildfire year in the American West, with naturally caused fire and Native use of fire to rejuvenate the landscape being a routine part of a healthy forest.
Before active suppression efforts after the 1910 fires, fires burned throughout the West creating a patchwork effect, with burned areas from the year/s before in essence creating checks on fires spreading.
What the 1988 fires in Yellowstone demonstrated was the resilience of a landscape when dealing with fire. Look at the Yellowstone website for photos taken in 1989, and you'll see new growth sprouting up everywhere in burned areas. Look at it now and you see healthy forests.
With aggressive fire fighting regimes, however, and individuals living next to fire prone areas insisting that all fires be suppressed, there is no longer that regulation in the system. That coupled with dryer, hotter summers means that fires do indeed burn longer and hotter, often jumping right over areas that would have once put a check on their burning.
This is the problem we are dealing with in the West now. And it means federal agencies are going to have to let more fires burn, and start burning more fires themselves (prescribed burns) if they are to even begin to return to any semblance of a healthy system.
One interesting footnote: 1988 was also when James Hansen warned Congress about the potential of global warming. Many are still not heeding his warning.
113
The most important paragraph in the comment sbove is the last one. For more information Google James Hansen on nuclear power to see a couple of short YouTube videos on advanced nuclear reactors.
Maybe we can use the melting East Antarctic ice to put out the fires?
AGW is a very gradual process, gradual but unidirectional and relentless, we've had 400 consecutive months above the 1951-1980 baseline average. (NASA Goddard institute for space studies). If this were pure coincidence, the odds against would be several million, million, million, million, million, million, million,
(I think that's it...) times greater than the number of every visible subatomic particle in the universe, to one.
Must be a Chinese hoax.
44
I recall Yosemite Park's Tioga Pass road still closed on 4th July due to 10+ feet snow still on the road. Snow cover persisting into summer are often history now in the western US. Montana's glaciers are disappearing. Carbon dioxide levels, which last century were in the upper 200s, are now well past 400ppm and climbing. Like invisible clouds the CO2 holds the heat in, without the clouds benefit of reflecting sunshine back to space. More precipitation falling as rain in winter, and often in torrents, and less snow, that melts faster and earlier, are drying out the forests, decreasing their resistance to disease and increasing fires and their intensity. We need to elect leaders who will have the foresight and courage to take action on climate change by reducing use of carbon intensive fossil fuels.
179
We did elect a leader who had the courage and foresight to take on climate change. His name was Barak Obama. The current White House led by Trump, Pruitt and Zinke are systematically undoing all the positive steps taken by the Obama administration to reduce our use of fossil fuels.
10
Anyone building a home in western forests should really think twice. Seeing the summers dryer and hotter every year concerns me because without the trees and wildlife, the mountains are really not that interesting to visit or live in. The pristine forests that I encountered 40 years ago are few and far between. Western forests are now so dry, ravaged by insects and just waiting for the first lightening strike or careless person to set them ablaze. Once they burn, they will never be brought back in the lifetime of any person living now. America the beautiful is being destroyed by forces outside our borders and beyond our scope of being able to control them. Climate change affects every person whether they are aware of it or not. This is not a cycle but an epoch.
107
" America the beautiful is being destroyed by forces outside our borders and beyond our scope of being able to control them." This makes us sound too much like the victim. We have produced 25-30% of global carbon dioxide emissions over time, we are still the second largest producer, and we're the only country refusing to address the issue--there are forces well within our borders and our scope that we could control to limit emissions and sequester CO2 to slow down the rate of change. We simply choose not to. It would be more accurate to say America the beautiful is being destroyed in good part by America the not-so-beautiful, and the rest of the planet is being dragged along with us.
7
Bella, I take issue with your comment that: " America the beautiful is being destroyed by forces outside our borders and beyond our scope of being able to control them."
I'm sorry, it is not "forces outside our borders" but rather it is "America the beautiful" that is largely responsible for Climate Change. Sadly, the Trump administration and Pruitt with their war on the EPA is really counterproductive.
3
The largest CO2 emitter is the United States, not outside
our borders.
3
Many summers, I will spend a few months in rural central Idaho, starting in 2001. In the first years, if there was fire it was generally contained within a short time and limitations on enjoyment of the outdoors from smoke were few. The area where I reside has a natural valley, a bowl formation, so smoke from even distant places tends to aggregate there.
Over the past several years, the smoke situation has become progressively worse, each year a little worse than the last. This past year, the particular area where I was had a 'hazardous to health' warning for more than one day, where smoke in the air is visible and on going outside, you not only smell it but can taste it.
Even in Seattle last summer, due to wildfires in British Columbia and Western Washington, there was a solid week where heavy smoke in the air was a significant issue, a relative rarity for Seattle, having lived here most of the year for over forty years.
This past summer, there were multiples fires in the U.S. in the West, from Washington state, California and Idaho. Satellite pictures reveal how interconnected they are, as the smoke diffuses somewhat and meets.
Fire fighters interviewed for National Geographic are on the front lines, one of their leads said there is no doubt that climate change is upon us. As others have noted, the vast majority (97%) of climate scientists say that climate change is not only real, but that the primary driver is human activities.
88
Yes, I agree with Tim that "the primary driver (of climate change) is human activities."
And, there are technical solutions. Google "Dr. James Hansen on nuclear power" for a brief YouTube glimpse into how fourth-generation advanced reactors could be the solution to the problem of global warming.
There's also the climate change created disaster of the Pine Bark Beetle that has decimated over 1/3 of all the conifers in the Sierra Nevada range, as they have in similar forests all over the western USA. Entire sides of mountains with swaths of dead trees, all fire fuel.
Ironically many of the states with the worst wildfire seasons are Republican states, a party which refuses to admit that global climate change is a major contributing factor. It has been 31 years since the U.S. Congress was presented with indisputable scientific evidence that global climate change was a grave and impending threat to civilisation. Congress ignored the warnings under "orders" from the fossil fuel industry and other vested interests. Future generations (the grandchildren of Republican leaders and voters) will curse the selfishness and ignorance of these people.
49
Republicans do believe in climate change. They do not believe in the extent of human caused climate change, as accurate data has only been around since the 70s with computer satelitte technology. The fossil fuel industry is aware of the threat of climate change, and has taken significant measures to cut back on emissions. The reality is that if you completely cut these emissions, the economic base behind them collapses. These emissions must be gradually cut back- not punished- allowing for the free market to create environmental friendly options at a lesser cost. Already, solar and wind power are slowly taking over. If we continue on this trend, we should have a healthy, environmental friendly, economy.