U.S. Wildfires Map Reveals Rising Menace - Annual Acreage Burned Has Doubled Since 1960

A new map, done up in blazing color, plots more than a decade's worth of the massive fires that have hit the United States, offering a revealing portrait of an increasingly common menace. On a stark black background, complete with topographic features, the map shows not only where fires have burned between 2001 and July 2012, but also shows their intensity, veering from a wash of purplish dots for the smallest fires, up through stipples of red and smears of searing yellow for the mightiest blazes. "Fire activity has definitely increased in terms of overall activity and acreage burned, and that's not just in the United States," said William Sommers, a research professor at George Mason University's EastFIRE Laboratory, and a former longtime director of fire research for the U.S. Forest Service. Sommers said that prescribed burns aren't likely to have increased very much in recent decades because of strict regulation at the state level — pollution laws limit the number of burns allowed. In addition, he said, the preventative burns are not nearly as powerful as wildfires, and NASA instruments simply can't see them as well. That means the overall increase is in wildfires, and that this can be attributed to three main factors: climate change, increasingly plentiful fuel for fires, and the increasing urbanization of wild places. The number of acres wildfires burn annually has doubled since 1960, according to a February 2012 report from the U.S. Forest Service, which points to climate change as a big factor in the increase. The report also says that fire seasons are likely to become longer and even more severe in the future...more