"Large Fires Becoming Even Larger, More Widespread"

"Their frequency has tripled in some parts of the U.S., a team of environmental scientists found".

"Each year, thousands of wildfires burn millions of acres in the United States.

Fire season may be a reality in many places around the country. But the threat is spreading to areas once relatively unscathed by wildfires, a new study suggests.

In the journal Science Advances, a team of environmental scientists found that fire frequency has tripled in some parts of the United States — and that in the 2000s, wildfires grew up to four times the size of fires in previous decades.

The scientists studied data from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity, a federal interagency program that tracks burn severity over time in the United States. The data spans from 1984 to 2018 and covers more than 28,000 fires over 1,000 acres in size in the West and 500 acres in size in the East."

Erin Blakemore reports for the Washington Post March 27, 2022.

Source: Washington Post, 03/28/2022