Guardian UK: Feeling the heat

[marmar]

Feeling the heat
California's raging wildfires this summer are a sign of the climate changes already drying up America's great outdoors

Jay Stevens
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 September 2009


For more than two weeks, the Station fire has raged in and around California's Angeles national forest, just outside of Los Angeles. So far, it's burned more than 160,000 acres and 80 homes. Two firefighters lost their lives to the blaze when their truck, seeking an exit from a fire-besieged hilltop, plunged into a canyon 800 feet below. A third was airlifted from the fire this weekend. The fire's slowly being brought under control and, while the fire still a threat to the historic Mt. Wilson observatory and several campgrounds, it's likely the worst is over.

Still, at a cost to state taxpayers of $50 million – so far – this and California's other wildfires threaten to upend the already precarious state budget. And that's not even accounting for the dangers of mudslides for those living around the deforested burn areas, or the threat to the Los Angeles County watershed the fire's debris poses. Like the Station fire, California's wildfires have stretched state and local infrastructure, and thrown communities into disarray.

These California fires came earlier this year and needed no high winds to stoke them into major conflagrations. Started by an arsonist, the Station fire was brought to life by high heat and low humidity, feeding on tinder-dry underbrush in the area's steep canyons. As such, it's a harbinger of other, worse fires to come – and not just in California. That's because the environmental conditions that caused California's fires to be virulent are likely to be mirrored across the western US in the coming years as climate change nudges temperatures upwards.

At least, that's what the climate model of a group of Harvard University scientists predicts, according to their report recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The report claims that the US should expect 50% more area burned every year by wildfires by 2055 due to climate change. That estimate rises sharply for the Pacific northwest and Rocky Mountain regions, which should expect a 75 to 175% increase in burned areas during that period, if temperatures rise as expected. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/14/climate-change-wildfires-california