Ross McKitrick: The truth about forest fires goes up in climate-change smoke
JUNE 17, 2023
tags: wildfires
By Paul Homewood
We’re told we should listen to the science, but the science on forest fires is that they peaked in the 1980s
Until the recent Canadian wildfires sent plumes of smoke over the densely populated cities around the Great Lakes and along the Eastern Seaboard, few people in those cities had ever experienced the weird orange haze of a forest fire or the temporary spike in fine particulates and pervasive smell of smoke. Understandably, many people reacted with alarm. We city-dwellers typically only see wildfires on television, usually alongside footage of fire crews and water-bombers valiantly trying to put them out, which creates the impression they are somehow unnatural events that must be avoided at all costs. In reality, forest fires are not only natural but essential to the life cycle of the forest ecosystem.
Unfortunately, politicians, reporters and climate activists rushed in to exploit this unusual event by pushing their agenda. They made a lot of glib claims about climate change causing wildfires to become more common. For instance, Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted: “We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change.”
That statement is false. Amid the smokescreen of untrue claims, nobody seems to have bothered looking up the numbers. Canadian forest fire data are available from the Wildland Fire Information System. Wildfires have been getting less frequent in Canada over the past 30 years. The annual number of fires grew from 1959 to 1990, peaking in 1989 at just over 12,000 that year, and has been trending down since. From 2017 to 2021 (the most recent interval available), there were about 5,500 fires per year, half the average from 1987 to 1991.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/06/17/ross-mckitrick-the-truth-about-forest-fires-goes-up-in-climate-change-smoke/
