What do wildfires have to do with climate change?
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - 09:30
in Earth & Climate
As the western U.S. faces its third year of severe drought, firefighters are still battling two large fires in California. The state, which is experiencing its worst drought since record keeping began in 1895, has already exhausted the year's $209 million budget for fighting wildfires and its fall fire season has just begun. With 1,200 more wildfires than average, state officials have called this wildfire season "unprecedented." In Oregon and Washington, more acres burned this year than in any other region of the country. So far in 2014, 3,070,737 acres across the U.S. have been ravaged by fires—that's an area almost the size of Connecticut.