Based on what they have experienced over the years, California residents may suspect that wildfires have become more extreme amid the warm and drought-prone climate.
A new paper in the journal Science puts that theory to the test, with a startling finding: California wildfires spread four times faster in 2020 than in 2001.
This study, commissioned by scientists from the University of Colorado, UC Merced and UCLA, also found that in the Western world, fires have grown 250% faster in 2020 than in 2001.
“Humans are very good at putting out all fires,” said Park Williams, a UCLA professor and co-author of the study, but “the faster the fire, the easier it is to escape.”
Although accurate, the relationship between the speed at which a fire spreads and the damage it causes to buildings and land has been difficult to quantify until recent advances in satellite technology, he said.
Now, scientists can chart “trends in daily growth rates,” he said. Using daily fire spread images of 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020, they were able to identify a relationship between damage and speed, Williams said.
“Within this 20-year study period, fires in the US actually started moving faster,” he said. The 3% of fires with the fastest daily growth rates accounted for nearly 90% of property losses in the two decades studied.
“In California more than most places in the US, people are dealing with changes in fire behavior,” Williams said.
Many Californians live near burning plants and are at high risk.
This study provided several possible explanations for the increase in fire speed.
“Fires may grow faster due to warming trends, the shift of vegetation to burning fuels, or the combination of high winds and human-related temperature increases,” the study said.
The recent wildfires in California have caused death and destruction and brought the home insurance industry to the brink of crisis. With the 2024 fire season coming to an end, all eyes will be on next year.
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