Study Finds Climate Change Lengthening Wildfire Seasons Across Globe

"MISSOULA -- The length of wildfire seasons across the globe and the burnable areas of Earth’s surface have drastically increased in the past three decades due to climate change, according to a groundbreaking new study supported by years of research from the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory.

In a paper published Tuesday in the international journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers concluded that from 1979 to 2013, fire weather seasons have lengthened across 18.39 million square miles of Earth’s vegetated surface, resulting in an 18.7 percent increase in the global average fire season length. The global burnable area affected by long fire seasons has doubled in that time, and from 1996 until 2013 there has been a 53.4 percent increase in the frequency of long fire seasons.

One of the study’s lead authors, Matt Jolly, is a Fire Sciences Lab ecologist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula. Inside the cavernous facility, scientists conduct cutting-edge research on wildland fires using wind tunnels and massive burn chambers. Jolly spent four years of his life immersed in computer models and digging through historical climate and fire data to assist the study."

David Erickson reports for the Helena Independent Record July 19, 2015.