Shane Montemayor

ATMO-1010
Final Project
The Impacts of Wildfires across the Western U.S. May 4, 2017

1The figure above provided by

NASA represents global fire

activity over the last few centuries.

As we focus on the efforts to

suppress fires, (roughly from the

1920-1970s), you can see the

decline of charcoal reconstructions; however it is anticipated that emissions will skyrocket. The

reason for this can be explained by David M. J. S. Bowmans article, Fire in the Earth System.2

Bowman states that even though fires are disastrous, they do have their place in the world.

According to his article, wild fires not only impact the economies of the surrounding

communities, (by filling the air with pollutants, causing countless respiratory issues), but they

also effect the environments growth. To clarify his point, Bowman presents findings from The

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) which concluded that on a global level the

climate will perpetuate the growing risk of wild fires simply because of our lack of

understanding of holistic fire science.

Bowmans stance is supported by the works of Philip E. Dennison and A. L. Westerling,

as they study the effects of wildfires across the U.S. over the past few decades. Westerling sought

1 NASA. Global Fire Activity Variation. Digital image. N.p., 10 Nov. 2010. Web
2Bowman, David M. J. S. "Fire in the Earth System." Science 324.5926 (2009): 481-84. JSTOR. Web. 04 May 2017.
out the cause for the sudden increase in wildfire activity in the 19th - 20th century. As a result of

the early 1900 livestock grazing and wildfire suppression techniques, the forest structure

changed and the biomass accumulated. Simply put, the environment adapted around our

suppression techniques and retaliated with frequent intense wildfires rather than its infrequent

low-intensity surface fires in the past. The commercialization of our environment has not only

been the catalyst for the environment to adapt and retaliate, but its also been the root cause for

the change in our climate. As our climate becomes warmer, our vegetation becomes drier,

creating the perfect recipe for frequent and intense wildfires.

Furthermore, in Philip E. Dennison states in his article, Large wildfire trends in the

western United States, 19842011,Remarkably, the increasing trends in fire activity span a wide

range of vegetation types, latitudes, and precipitation regimes found in the western U.S. Fire

regimes that dominate the nine examined ecoregion vary in prevalent fuel type, fire season, fire

frequency, and fire intensity but share large increases in fire activity over the study period. 3 As

you can see from Dennisons work, the increase of wildfires are not restricted to specific areas or

vegetation types. With this considered we can ascertain that the cause for this particular trend

during the 1920-1970s was due to the change in our climate and the domestication of wildfires.

As we look towards the future we can only expect that things will get worse if we don't

change our approach now. Westerling also suggests that base on climate-model projections, that

our springs will result in snow melting early, causing our summers to be longer, hotter and drier.

Additionally, Westerling suggests that if this in fact yields hotter/drier summers, it will change

the composition of our forest by reducing the density of trees. This will snowball by increasing

3Dennison, P. E., S. C. Brewer, J. D. Arnold, and M. A. Moritz (2014), Large wildfire trends in the western United States,1984
2011, Geophys. Res. Lett.,41,29282933, doi:10.1002/2014GL059576.
the atmospheric CO2 levels because the dry vegetation cant absorb the excess CO2. This is

almost as if you try to breathe after having the wind knocked out of you. As you can imagine,

this scenario would hardly be a win-win for the Earth or its inhabitants.