'The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes.'
Although small and easily contained, this tiny fire in rural northeastern California was another wake-up call, up close and personal, about an ominous trend. A warming planet and changing land use are fueling a dramatic surge in forest fires worldwide. Terrifyingforecast a 57% increase in extreme fires globally by century's end. The indisputable cause: climate change.
The single-largest fire in California's history, Dixie was part of a record-breaking fire year globally. Around the world, fires burned nearly 23 million acres, an area almost the size of Portugal. Dixie contributed to the worldwide loss to fire of more than a third of the tree cover that disappeared in those 12 months, according to afrom the World Resources Institute. And this is only a preview of what's to come.
Nor is such a bio-feedback loop limited to the Arctic. As the world becomes hotter and drier, the carbon we emit from our reliance on fossil fuels is drying out forests everywhere, making them ever more prone to burn, while extending burning seasons globally. Firefighters in California used to don fire-resistant Nomex shirts in May or June, knowing they could shed them by mid-October. Now, there's barely a pause before things heat up again and those shirts go right back on.
"There isn't the right attention to fire from governments," says Glynis Humphrey, a fire expert at the University of Cape Town and one of those U.N. researchers.
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