Predicting Wildfires Could Save Lives. So Why Are We So Bad At It?
A firefighter uses a flare to conduct backburn operations against the 89 Mesa Fire the night of May 6, 2010. Credit: USDA Forest Service, Coconino National Forest. Last year in Arizona, 19 firefighters got trapped in an unpredictably fast wildfire. All of them died. It was the highest firefighter death toll for a single fire since 1933. The same year, Sierra Nevada saw its largest fire ever, which ravaged 402 square miles, and Colorado suffered its most destructive wildfire in state history—nearly 500 homes were destroyed. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, some 140 wildfires struck the western U.S. states in the 1980s, while about 250 raged between 2000 and 2012. In those states, fire season has also grown, extending from five months in the 1970s to seven or more months today (California’s drought has been so...