This year Washingtonians saw the worst fire season in some time. The Carlton Complex burned its way into our psyche as the largest fire in state history, burning over 256,000 acres and destroying about 300 homes. Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency. Washington fires were frequently feature stories in national news. Needless to say, we are all anxious for the end of fire season.   

It may be common place for the residents of North Central Washington, but as an outsider it’s been strange to see more smoky days than clear skies in September. A question for all the long time locals-do you remember seeing so many smoky days five years ago? 10 years ago? 20 years ago? Likely your answer is “no, No, NO!”

It’s no secret that in the Pacific Northwest we've seen a significant increase in the size and severity of wild fires in the last decade. Contributing factors to the uptick include forest management techniques, the growing population and increased development in wildland areas. Another undeniable contributor, climate change, is no longer something the greater scientific world is divided on. So I won’t spend any time highlighting facts to prove it. Instead, let’s consider what climate change means for the fire seasons to come.

It’s easy to say warmer weather results in higher fire danger and be done with it. But after digging a little deeper a layman, like myself, will find that there’s much more to climate change than just hotter, drier conditions. In every article I read on the subject, one common theme is longer fire seasons. With an earlier than average snow melt and warmer temperatures later in the fall, forests are at risk much longer than in the past. 50 years ago the snowpack in the Pacific Northwest melted about four weeks later than in recent years. With a shorter, less sustained melt off, forests have a relatively small window of sufficient moisture.

Mountain Pine Beetle

A lesser known yet equally exasperating effect climate change has on the fire season is the increase in fuel. Dead trees make the best fuel source for large scale wild fires. Tree killing insects like the pine

beetle have a high survival rate during mild winters, and drier conditions allow for widespread insect infestations. Ipso facto, climate change has allowed tree munching insects to turn swaths of forest into giant tinder boxes.

Even lesser known is the effect of increased risk of lightning. Not surprisingly, lightning is the cause of tens of thousands of fires each year. The likelihood of lightning increases as the temperature rises. According to the National Wildlife Federation’s website, for every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit increase lightning strikes are 6% more likely. So if our current warming trends continue, we will see an increase in lightning and lightning caused fires.

As there is no way to stomp the brakes on the climate change bus, we’re going to have to learn to live with its worsening effects. However, considering the difficulty in predicting climate change in the future, wise resource management is much easier to say than do. There is so much that we don’t understand about climate change that it can be hard to distinguish between right and wrong practices.

As tough as it may be to predict the future, one of the best  resources on climate change effects attempts to do just that. The NWCC, or Northwest Interagency Coordination Center website (if the name befuddles you as it did me, follow the link and read up!) has a plethora of reports, predictive data and helpful links. Those looking for more information, or those who are skeptical about information obtained from a layperson’s blog, may find this website handy. Particularly interesting to me was the seasonal outlook video.

The NWCC late summer and fall climate and significant fire outlook video offers information rich graphics with helpful narration.