Ninety-five percent of wildfires that ravaged California in the past 100 years were caused by humans, according to a forthcoming study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.
“In most of California, if we could stop ignition during extremely high winds and drought and heat spells, like now, that will be an effective approach,” lead author and U.S. Geological Survey wildfire expert Jon Keeley told The San Jose Mercury News of his soon-to-be-published study.
While the public debate largely rages around global warming’s role in wildfires, Keeley’s study shows that human interaction with the landscape, no matter the climate, is causing most fires.
Motorized equipment, from gas-powered weed-whackers to lawn mowers and generators, are the main cause of fires, Keeley said. Arson, burning of debris, kids messing around with fire, smoking, vehicles, and utility lines are also major causes of wildfires, Keeley said.
The western U.S. has warmed in the past few decades, but its population has also boomed, meaning more people are living in wildfire-prone areas. The increased human presence means more chances of ignition in paces and at times where fires tend not to naturally occur without lightning.
Power lines account for much of the historical are burned from wildfires, Keeley said. That included 12 fires that burned through Northern California in 2017 that ravaged thousands of acres and caused at least 15 deaths.
Keeley said the number of fires peaked in 1979 and has been declining ever since, which is probably an indication of better education about the dangers of wildfires, Keeley said. However, the area burned in California increased in some parts of California in recent decades.
Keeley’s study also comes as a 51-year-old man accused of starting the Holy Fire in California’s Cleveland National Forest. Forrest Gordon Clark was charged by authorities with “aggravated arson and criminal threats, among other offenses,” CNN reported.
Clark is set to appear in court Friday for his arraignment and bail review. The fire he allegedly started consumed more than 22,000 acres and forced 21,000 residents to flee their homes. Firefighters have contained about half the blaze as of Monday.
Wildfires ripped through more than 680,000 acres of California so far in 2018, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The biggest blaze, the Mendocino Complex Fire, has scorched more than 328,000 acres but is more than 50 percent contained.
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I don’t have the slightest amount of pity for those in California who have lost their homes. When you build in an area with a history of drought and forest fires you’re own your own. Two words: Vesuvius, Pompeii.
Agree Alan. Like the people out there who build homes on the edges of cliffs only to see them careen down the mountainside with a mudslide. We here in Colorado see the same with fires–homes being built in forested areas that then burn in a forest fire.
Steve,
Seen your intelligent comments before. Writing a primer re C02/AGW BOVINE SCATOLOGY. astew2016@outlook.com John O’Sullivan can vouch for my creds. Want help, opinions.
The amount of CO2 that is supposed to retain heat is approximately the size of a fly swatter that will stop a T Rex. Poor analogy but how does .04% of the atmosphere control the total???
Cheers
Liberal idiots lighting up their hookas throw match into dry material FOREST FIRE it dont look like Smokey Bear is getting through to these idiots
And it dont help when agents from the Dept of Fish & Game bars people from clearing the brush from around their ho,es because some dumb rodent these stupid Buricrats