By Jim Steele
- There is a global fire crisis! The truth: Fires are totally driven by local conditions. Framing wildfires as a global crisis is a misleading semantic device to frame fires as part of a CO2 driven global warming narrative. For example (GRAPHIC A), the American southwest’s naturally dry climate always makes that region vulnerable to fire weather. California receives no moisture during the 4 months of summer, naturally drying vegetation. In contrast eastern USA gets most of its rains during the summer and suffers much fewer fires.
- Wildfires have Dramatically Increased! The truth: Graphs (GRAPHIC B), only showing changes in wildfire frequency since 1950 are egregiously cherry-picking the timeline. Long term research (GRAPHIC C) shows wildfire were far more frequent before 1900. Afterwards intensive fire suppression dropped fire frequency to all time lows. However, fire suppression was allowing a dangerous accumulation of ground fuels. So, over the past 3 decades, fire suppression policies have been relaxed to allow more fires.
- Climate Crisis Expanded Fire season to All Year! The truth: Natural fire season is caused by lightning ignitions and peaks in June thru August (GRAPHIC D blue bars). It’s human ignitions that have expanded the fire season (GRAPHIC D red bars). 85% to 95% of all fires are due to human ignitions. In the US, 13% are started by arsonists.
- Global Warming Made Vegetation More Flammable: The truth: We all know starting a sustainable campfire requires flammable tinder and kindling (GRAPHIC E). Fire experts call tinder 1-hour fuels and kindling 10-hour and 100-hour fuels (GRAPHIC F). That means the tinder and kindling that starts wildfires only require 1 to 4 days of dry weather to become highly flammable. 1 to 4 days is weather, NOT climate. Flammable fuels that start wildfires have nothing to do with climate change which requires at least 30 years of change to detect.
- Reporting Increased Burnt Area Fails to Mention Vegetation Type! The truth: Grass and shrub fires dominated by 1-hour and 10-hour fuels account for 70% of the burnt area since 1990.(GRAPHIC G) . The extensive recent Texas panhandle fire is an example of a human ignition starting a prairie grass fire during Texas’ naturally driest month of the year. Furthermore, 1-hour fuels in grass and shrublands have increased due the increase in invasive cheat grass. .(GRAPHIC H) Unlike most native grasses, cheat grass is an annual that dies and dries out by early spring, providing fuels for earlier fires. Furthermore, in the deserts of the American southwest, limited ground fuel controls fire frequency. It once took 80 to 100 years to accumulate enough ground fuel to sustain a desert wildfire. Now cheat grass has added abundant ground fuels that have dramatically increase western USA’s desert wildfire frequency.
- Mindlessly Blame CO2 warming for Increased Aridity! The truth: Studies of precipitation since 1998 found only 12% of the world has had any significant changes in precipitation. .(GRAPHIC I) Only 6% has resulted in increased aridity. Most of the detected increased aridity in California was caused by natural La Nina-like conditions during the research’s time period.
Although a 20-year period of a drier climate associated with La Nina-like conditions will dry out the biggest dead logs, so they more easily burn, changes in wildfire frequency and burnt area extent, have absolutely nothing to do with climate change.
Can’t wait for the first greenie to blame increased wildfires on increased greening which his betters say isn’t happening.
The first time I heard the alarmists saying that CC was causing droughts AND floods I knew they were grasping at straws trying to make somethings out of nothing and that is when I rested assured that there was nothing to worry about. They are so transparent.
The biggest sign that Climate Scientists are lying about CC and
WildfiresForest Fires would beThey’re talking about them
Unfortunately, delusions, like wildfire, can be contagious.
When I lived in Southern California, we used to periodically have wet Springs followed by hot, dry summers, followed by fires, followed by rain and ensuing mudslides. I remember an interview with a man who owned a megahome along the Laguna highway that slid down the hillside. He was heart-broken, It was the third time it had happened in 15 years. Oh, well, he said they were just going to have to rebuild.
I remember thinking I hoped this annual insurance was at least 20% of the value of the structures – and how stupid are you to not learn and just rebuild?
We have to remember that any type of weather anomaly is automatically pounced upon by the alarmists as evidence of “a climate crisis” or “an existential threat”. So it continues to be of vital importance that WUWT and similar climate reality sites are ready with articles like the above that refute the phony hysterics.
Exploiting human loss and tragedy for political and pecuniary advantage in the wake of wildfires in settled areas as has occurred in recent years in US Australia and Europe is contemptible.
But, is that Climate Scientists making the proclamations or just socialist media outlets perpetrating the great lie?
Or Both??
The capitalists own most of the media in the US.
Owners who enjoy the freedoms of capitalism to help bring about a totalitarian “socialist paradise” are socialists.
Chinese Communists understand the power of capitalism since the end of the British Lease of Hong Kong. Yet China is still Communist, just embracing capitalism for the power that comes with it
Both.
Ask Michael Mann.
This is the reason supposed “scientists” jumped on the renaming of “Global Warming” to eventually “Climate Change”.
A logical extension of Stephen Schneider’s admonition that they would have to make a personal decision about revealing the “uncertainly” of their findings.
Ambiguity is their friend.
California has more like seven or eight months with little or no rain, not just four.
Eh, here it stops raining in April, starts in October or November. That’s mid-state along I-80, it varies north to south and east to west.
I suppose depending on where you live, we can quibble about how many months California lacks rain. My experience for 35 years of research north of Lake Tahoe was rain is extremely rare from mid-June to mid-October (4 months) . Outside that time there are still infrequent rainstorms in following and preceeding months before more frequent heavy rains begin in late November and end in early May.
I lived in San Jose and Concord over fifty years. There was very little rain outside November through March typically.
My experience, living most of my adult life in the Santa Clara Valley, is that there is frequently a storm in late-September, and then little rain until until November. The Diablo Range, on the east, is green from winter-spring rains on April first; the hills are brown by May first.
A good late September or early October rain is how you get an excellent Chanterelle season in the Santa Cruz mountains, especially if the cool down is delayed to Thanksgiving.
Great post, Jim. Excellent illustrations.
I might add that fire is a vital part of many ecosystems. Personal example. My Wisconsin Uplands dairy farm used to be all oak savanna. Periodic natural wildfires cleared the land of brush and annoyances like box elder, leaving only prairie grasses and fire adapted burr oaks. (Burr oaks have very thick bark, and eventually very thick trunks. When young, they grow rapidly up. As soon as the burr oak crown reaches a height above a prairie fire, it will survive if the fire passes quickly (the bark is not yet thick enough for the phloem to withstand a slow fire). My pastures and three wood lots (only existing from now 140 years of fire supression) all have very big but very old burr oaks. Young burrs with their wide but not so tall canopies get outcompeted in the woodlots by the eventually taller white, red, and black oaks plus the shag bark hickories, black cherries, and hard maples that comprise the three woodlots (respectively about 25, 35, and 50 acres). Plus young ones cannot survive constant pasture cow grazing.
We have a down valley neighbor on about 100 acres who is not farming, rather trying to return his land to oak savanna prairie. Every few years he brush hogs a fire break around his land boundaries (and cabin), then sets the whole thing ablaze on purpose. Of course he gets a fire permit each time.
The Chicago Botanic Gardens has an artificial island in its Skokie River lagoon (south end of the Gardens has a dam that makes the meandering lagoon— so they can show off exotic aquatic plants in a natural setting) of about ten acres that was made into a showplace long grass prairie, with a prairie visitor gravel walking path from the concrete bridge across the lagoon to the island. They burn the whole island every other year late summer after the long grasses dry out. Is quite the visitor event, for which they intentionally double parking prices. By fall, the deep rooted fire adapted prairie grasses have greened back significantly.
So true Rud. We’ve been programed to think forest fires are bad, like house fires.
Jim says “85% to 95% of all fires are due to human ignitions”. Whatever the actual percentage, in the era before forest fire prevention, 100% of all natural fires burned uncontrolled until natural extinction. And with the combustibles consumed, it would be decades until the next natural fire could again serve its natural function.
Only you…
Only Hugh can prevent forest fires
Oh the Hugh Manatee
Great post, Jim. Excellent illustrations.
I would add one thing. There are many ecosystems that are fire adapted, where occasional fire is a necessary thing.
Personal example. My Wisonsin Uplands dairy farm used to be an oak savanna. The occasional prairie fires cleaned out everything except the fire adapted prairie grasses and burr oaks. The proof is all the now very big but very old burr oaks still scattered about the farm.
We have a down valley neighbor on about 100 acres who is not farming, rather trying to return his property to a small oak savannah. Every couple of years he brush hogs a perimeter fire break, then sets it ablaze. After getting a fire permit.
Final personal example, The Chicago Botanic Gardens near where I used to live has an artificial about 10 acre island in its Skokie River lagoons. (South end of Gardens has a dam to form the lagoons, which enables the Gardens to show exotic temperate aquatic plants from around the world in big ‘natural’ settings.) The island was made into a teaching long grass prairie (metal signage), with a gravel walking path reached from the concrete lagoon bridge. Every other year they set the island ablaze in late summer after the prairie grasses dry out. Is quite the visitor attraction, for which they double admissions. The various fire adapted long stem prairie grasses come back green by early fall.
Rud, you’ve been commenting here for years. I have no idea why your comments are now being held awaiting moderation. But this comment by you is basically the same as the one above.
Sorry that it sometimes takes a while for me to approve the comments awaiting moderation.
Regards,
Bob
I thought I forgot to hit post on the first longer comment when it did not appear after a few minutes. Never imagined it hit an admin block. Not my style.
And, as per usual in my ebook writing experience, the second draft is better than the first. You can delete the first, which goes unnecessarily into burr oak biology.
Anyways, a double dose of the same personal fire adapted ecosystem observations.
I similarly had an innocuous comment go into moderation a few minutes ago.
It happens to me once or twice a month.
My guess is there is a moth inside the server.
{Historically the cause of the bug in the computer.}
“Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago” (Doerr, Santín Royal Society Publishing 2016).
Very nice Jim.
Up to 90% of forest fires are manmade and are not increased by slightly warmer nights from climate change.
There is also no evidence the other 10% are connected to climate change
Many areas get dry in the hotter months and could catch on fire. They can not get any drier from slight global warming once they are already dry.
Possible reasons for more manmade fires”
— Growing populations leads to more accidents
— More people living near forests
— Poor maintenance of tree growth near transmission lines
— Unfortunately, some fires are started by climate zealots
The bottom line about more CO2 and global warming: Almost all the changes are good news
The claims of bad news from global warming are imaginary. Just data free predictions that have been wrong since 1979
You forgot a couple which are a bit of a problem around here…
— A diminished amount of forest management and maintenance.
— Land that used to be grazed, being resumed by the green agenda and left unkempt, becoming a massive fire hazard.
Not many bushfires around eastern NSW since 2019, which was a very dry year.
All years since have been pretty damp…. this year particularly.
Yes bnice, I suspect most areas need regular “cool” control burning regularly every few years and to get that done gets harder year by year because of the people responsible wanting to cover their backsides at an ever-increasing rate.
I have maintained a couple of miles of fire breaks on my place in SE Queensland for the last 30-odd years and could once get permission to burn every couple of years or so.
But I haven’t been able to get a similar approval for at least the last 10 years. And the naturally-increasing fuel load becomes frightening.
When we get our next wildfire here it will have nothing to do with climate change.
Where do you find an arsonist when you want one?
I was thinking the lack of forest management could lead to more acres burned but humans usually ignite the fuel.
Well, first off if they’re employed they’re lying to stay employed – we’ve established that.
Secondly, wildfires aren’t a form of climate so even Trump knows more about them than a “climate” scientist.
Third… there’s no actual masters or doctorate degree in climate. Its more of a collection of skillsets and a career path than any kind of degree. Which means I’m also able to claim to be a climate scientist simply because I know the words “insolation” “humidity” and “weather” The closest thing we have to a climate degree is a collection of science fiction works and a small office at NASA that studies things that don’t have anything to do with climate.
Fourth, empirically fires happen because of a LACK of “climate” due to the cessation of normal atmospheric cycle. They happen in an atmosphere that has stopped working normally and gone on vacation leaving an imposter weather in their place. If the fires were part of a “climate” then they would burn in cyclic waves everywhere on at least 4 years out of 7.
Fifth, climate isn’t global. They themselves (the warmists) have established that so they can keep lying whenever they feel like. Climate is due to circulation bands of the atmosphere we have common terms for combined with proximity to upwind environmental conditions… which means these fires out in Texas are simply spurious (if not uncommon). If it was climate there’d be fires from Hardiness 5 through 9 across the same range based on distance east of the Pacific Ocean that share even a mild similarity in altitude and flora.
How can you tell a climate scientist is lying? What the hell is a climate scientist? There aren’t any with the exception of the few people who study Roraima Tepui. Literally the only place on the planet where we have a near lab-grade contained climate.
the first precautionary principle now expanded for climate crises propaganda
A warmer world is a wetter world … a cooler world is a drier world
Despite my inadvertent double above posted comment, an additional separate thought has occured.
The warmunists do not at all grasp ecological reality, despite their claims. Some examples:
Jim:
What is the source for the graph labeled “c” that shows the fire incidence going back to the 1700s. I could not find a reference for it in the post and would love to have it available to help spread the correct message.
Thanks, Don Healy
here it is
either
Mesoscale Disturbance and Ecological Response to Decadal Climatic Variability in the
American Southwest Swetnam (1998)
or Historical Fire Regime Patterns in the Southwestern United States Swetnam (1999)
The U. of Oregon, U. of Utah, and now Central Washington University (CWU) have been studying fire history in the western USA by using sediment cores and other techniques. Dr. Megan Walsh is the lead at CWU and her research publications list is worth a look (lots of other names):
Central Washington University | Dr. Megan Walsh (cwu.edu)
{full disclosure – She is a friend}
Jim, thanks so much for the prompt response. It will be put to good use in the very near future.
Regards. Greatly appreciate your fine work!!
To see a big Ponderosa Pine “candle” is a spectacular experience.
I have likely been closer to and seen more wildland fire than any of the
alarmists that claim CO2 is the cause. Relatively speaking, I haven’t
seen much. On the other hand, a little is a lot. The 2014 Snag Canyon Fire
came the closest. Right after being told to evacuate, the wind changed
and we stayed.
El Nino rains in California boost the undergrowth fuel load, the state turned green late 2016 to early 2017, then big fires in the summer. The same in 1879 after the 1877-78 super El Nino.
This is incorrect. As I’ve pointed out in the past, pre-1950 fire data is recording a fundamentally different metric than post-1950 fire data:
https://youtu.be/D4iqqn103Do?si=1nIvj9Xzq43kXRlk
Alan you apparently don’t understand the different methods of measuring fire history. The post 1950 data in graphic B has been created from agency estimates but is totally out of context for meaningful measurements of fire trends and effects of fire suppression, so that graphic exaggerates recent fires which conveniently alarmists use to blame CO2.
Graphic C compare tree rings and fire scars or charcoal deposits. Many others have confirmed the trend that in the 1700 and 1800s, there were far more fires than in the 1900s. Such as A multi-century perspective on contemporary re decit and anomalous re severity in the southwestern United States McClure (2024)
Nothing is incorrect other than your understanding.
Thanks for clarifying, so graph C shows a limited geographic area of the contiguous US and is apples to oranges in comparison to your graph B. No wonder you didn’t provide any sources in the article.
LOL Such a desperate little alarmist troll. When your ignorance is exposed simply run from the truth and deflect with a bad analogy
If you truly wanted the source you just had to ask like the honest people here do.
Here’s another fire trend from a different geographic area. But I don’t think you are really interested in the truth about fires
You need to watch the video I linked.
Alan, You need to learn some science and to stop your idiotic dishonest trolling! That video is worthless and does not refute a word I say.
The video shows quite conclusively that you cannot assume that pre-1950 fire data is congruous with post-1950 fire data. Your entire argument relies on this being true.
I’ll look forward to you actually addressing the argument I’ve presented instead of feigning indignance as a defense mechanism.
You must be the most stupid obsessed troll yet. My “entire argument relies” on data from charcoal deposits and burns scars and tree rings. Not the one graph that has valid concerns that you fixate on.
So you keep avoiding the science presented to push your BS alarmism. Your dishonest obfuscation is totally disgusting!
You present data from one single part of the American southwest, and claim based on it that the frequency of wildfires globally is unchanged. We both see how absurd that is, right?
A baseless yap from a nobody, pertaining to nothing.
Just the sort of standard we expect from you, AJ
28 views in a year. Amazing.
Why CO2 has nothing to do with wildfires or forest fires.
The radical greens lawfare is a huge factor in the level of intensity of wildfires, the
Rice Ridge Fire near Seeley Lake MT is a recent prime example. It was “endangered
species” lawsuit that stopped the management of the beetle killed lodgepole by The
Alliance for The Wild Rockies aka Mike Garrity from Helena MT. 100ft tall dead
lodgepole pine with a moisture content of kiln dried lumber burned like a grass fire
with the grass being 100++ft tall. That became a “stand clearing” fire, the nearby Blackfoot
River ran black all the next summer. Nothing grows back in a stand clearing fire for hundreds
of years, as in 4-5 hundred years. Environmentalist integrity in full view.
He later sued to stop a bug killed salvage management operation a few years
later south of MacDonald Pass. The Thomas brothers had the high bid and were
ready to start work when the federal judge halted the sale. The timber was valued at over
$1million at that time. After a couple of years in court the judge threw out the lawsuit
and the value had dropped to less than $50K. These radicals need to be held accountable
for the difference, a bond for the value of the timber needs be posted when they file
their lawfare cases. It’s not clear how much these enviros make but it’s in the billions.
Garrity lives in a very posh neighborhood. The board members are former Earth First!! er’s
if that means anything. The federal judge rubber stamps these radical cases the same way
Trump cases are getting hit. The media never looks at these fires truthfully.
One correction: CO2 driven global
warmingapocalypse narrative…Good article. Three comments.