“I would say that this [fire season] is the new normal but it may not be the new normal for long,” he says. “Thirty years from now, we may look upon this as being a much better period than what we may be facing then.” Wildfires are roaring through twice as many acres per year on average in the U.S. than they were 40 years ago, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told the Senate in June. Due to climate change and changes in precipitation, that number could very well double again in the next 30 years, says Wuebbles. "Fires will continue to happen and get worse and worse.” “I predict that this September and October will be horrific,” says Burt, the weather historian, who recently wrote about the worst wildfires in U.S. history. “We’ve received only 65 percent of normal precipitation in the burn areas. When the offshore wind flow develops in September and October, our summer wildfire season will really begin.”
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 05:28:38 +0000
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