Most Disastrous Wildfires Are Caused By Humans, Not Climate Change
by Susan Crockford Jan 13, 2025
Extended periods of hot weather and drought create ideal conditions for hard-to-fight forest fires. [emphasis, links added]
Although climate models predict that such weather conditions generated by human-caused global warming will increase the incidence of wildfires, recent wildfires cannot be blamed exclusively—or even primarily—on global warming: Weather-driven conditions conducive to forest fires have existed for millennia as a result of naturally occurring climate cycles.
For example, studies have shown that over the past 3,000 years, severe fires in the Western U.S. occurred during the 1800s and the Medieval Warm Period (950–1250 AD), and some of the least destructive happened in the mid-20th century and during the Little Ice Age (1400–1700 AD).
Natural climate variability clearly modified historical fire severity, but landscape changes and similar human influences—including logging and farming practices, firefighting practices, the building of railroad lines and electrical grids, domestic livestock grazing, clearing forests for farmland and settlements (including modern suburbs), deliberate agricultural burning, increased recreational use of backcountry landscapes, and the intentional or accidental introduction of weedy, non-native grasses and shrubs—have affected wildlife behavior as they have changed over time, especially since the 1800s.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/most-disastrous-wildfires-are-caused-by-humans-not-climate-change/
