Forest fires are getting worse. While I’m not qualified to judge that these are due to Global Warming/Climate Change, the trend itself is quite worrisome.

Plotting forest fire data from the National Interagency Fire Center, (NIFC), for the years 1960–2015 shows clearly that there has been a steady increase in acres burned since 1998. There was a dip after the highs of 2009 but even these were higher than the highest years prior to 1990.

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The green line is a 5 year-window running average of the data. The first point is the average of years 1961–1965, the second 1962–1966 and so on.

An article in the Oregon Live discussing the worst forest fires since 1900 has 8 of 13 occurring entirely in this century. All 8 were caused by lightning strikes. Since the rate of lightning strikes is expected to be fairly stable across the years, the most severe forest fires being in this century strongly indicates that the forests are much drier now than they were in the past.

Listen to Smokey

The pop culture character, Smokey the Bear says “Only you can prevent forest fires”. While this is untrue in general — lightning fires cover 1.6 times more area than human caused fires — the data does show that in regions with higher human population density, humans cause more fires. So, prevent what you can. (Again, data from NIFC.)

Alaska

Alaska, which has a population density of 1 persons per sq mile, has most of its fires caused by lightning.

Compared with California, which has a population density of 251 persons per sq mile, has more caused by people.

California