Climate change has amped up the risk of explosive wildfire in California. Research from Berkeley’s Breakthrough Institute targeted the relationship between temperature and extreme fire growth. They found that climate change raised the risk of extreme daily wildfire growth by an average of 25-percent. The institutes’s Co-director Patrick Brown says it’s important to look at more direct on-the-ground solutions to the problem like fuel reduction. Brown added that higher temperatures alone do not increase fire danger – they do so by drying out vegetation. A new phase of research will assess the effect of prescribed burning and mechanical thinning on wildfire danger.
Climate Change Increasing Risk of Wildfires in California
