Fuel Load and Forest Fires
8 hours ago Guest Blogger 20 Comments
Don Healy
Over the past several years, I have been corresponding with many local journalists regarding the cause of the recent increase in forest fires in the U.S. Using the written word alone has garnered only modest success. While a few now mention fuel load in their articles, the mention is cursory at best with them harping back to increasing temperature as the driving force. Concluding that are more graphic approach was necessary I decided to use a period of Covid isolation to enhance my limited skills using the charting functions of Microsoft Excel. The following is the result when comparing U.S. data on acres burned to temperature and to fuel load:
Examining the situation from this perspective makes it very clear that fuel load is by far the dominant factor. This also confirms what we were taught by the forestry professors at Oregon State University in the late 1960s.
The rationale behind the chart and the sources for the data are as follows: The graph compares the number of acres burn in U. S. forest fires in recent decades to the two major conditions responsible for this increase, temperature and fuel load. The dashed orange “acres burned” line on the graph illustrates the increase in the acreage of forest fires that has occurred in the U.S. in the past four-plus decades. This data comes from the U.S. Interagency Fire Center. (Source:
https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/wildfires) This record used to extend back to the 1920s but was recently amended to cover the period from 1983 to the present, due to concerns about the earlier methods of determining burned acreage. Unfortunately, the Agency has nothing to replace this earlier data. Many are using this amending of the prior record to conclude that earlier periods, particularly the 1920s and 1930s, experienced fewer fires than were originally recorded. That assumption appears unwarranted in light of other peer-reviewed studies, the logs of some of the earlier Spanish and English explorers, anecdotal evidence from many of the early settlers, and even an account by Mark Twain during his visit to Tacoma in the 1880s. However, the data in this graph has been limited to currently approved data.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/08/19/fuel-load-and-forest-fires/
