
Here in Sonoma County, it was not until 2017 that we began to really dread October and November as “Fire Season”. Now when the wind blows strongly out of the North East we feel hyper alert, remembering the traumas of recent Autumns.
We wonder, “Why are the fires so much worse? Is it only the result of climate change, or is it forest management too?”
An article last September in The Washington Post, by Matthew Hurteau, associate professor of biology and director of the Earth Systems Ecology Lab at the University of New Mexico, cast some light on this topic.
Dr. Hurteau argues that “Fire Season” is a result of both factors. “The wildfires burning in the West are as large, hot and fast as they are because of climate change, as more heat and less water make vegetation more flammable.” And at the same time, in the dry forests of our coastal ranges, “there is too much fuel as a result of a century of fire suppression. Before then, these forests burned (less severely) with some regularity.”
“For years, even as the fuel built up, it remained pretty easy to put out significant fires, because the West was wetter and cooler than it is now. Beginning in the 1980s, however, as temperatures rose, the area susceptible to wildfires in the West began to spread. There were more crown fires in dry forests, and the problem grew significantly worse over the next three decades.”
Here is the link to the full article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com