New Climate Summary Smokes Out Wildfire Myths

Wildfires throughout the United States have become much less extensive in recent decades as the climate has warmed, reports a new climate summary at the website Climate at a Glance.

Climate at a Glance is designed to provide policymakers, educators, students, and the general public compelling one- or two-page summaries destroying common global warming myths.

Each summary begins with a few short bullet-points to concisely summarize the topic, followed by one or two explanatory paragraphs and an illustrative graphic.

According to the new summary on U.S. wildfires:

• Wildfires are far less frequent and severe than was the case throughout the first half of the 20th century.
• Occasional upticks in current wildfire activity still result in far less land burnt than was the case throughout the early 20th century.
  
• Even the worst recent wildfire years burned only 1/5 to 1/2 as much land as typical wildfire years during the early 20th century
• Drought is the key climate factor for wildfires. As shown in Climate at a Glance: Drought, the United States in recent decades is benefiting from strikingly small amounts of drought.

A full lineup of Climate-at-a-Glance summaries is available here. The U.S. Wildfires summary is available here.

Read more at Climate Realism