July 14, 2023

An Extremely Low Wildfire Year So Far

 We are now through roughly one-third of the Northwest wildfire season and it is turning out to be a very benign one so far.

In fact, wildfires are at a low level for wildfire across the entire U.S.    Reality is very different than some of the fear-inducing headlines in a number of media outlets.  

Let me prove this to you.

Let's begin with the U.S. wildfire acreage to date (July 13), from the National Interagency Fire Center (see below).  This year has the LOWEST wildfire acreage in ten years.


I have also plotted the ten-year trend (dashed line).  It is going down slightly....there is no statistically significant trend at all.  The situation is not getting worse for early-season fires.

What about wildfires in Washington State?   Below are the year-to-date acreage burned numbers (through July 10th) made available by Washington State DNR (this is for the subset of WA State for which DNR has responsibility).

2023 has been a very benign year, with the third lowest wildfire acreage of the past ten years and only 8% of the ten-year average.

So far this year, Washington State has only had a few significant grass/range fires, most started by careless humans.  

We were vulnerable to grass fires this year because of the bountiful rain last year, which produced a lot of grass.  Grass fires occur every year because grass and rangeland dry out rapidly early every summer in the Pacific Northwest.  

The current wildfire situation today (shown below) indicates only two (grass) fires in Washington State:  the Baird Spring Fire (95%), which is 95% contained, and the Wagner Road fire southeast of Spokane.


Here is a look at the efforts to put out the Wagner Road fire:


Such grassfires have minimal connection with climate change.  And there have been remarkably little forest fire activity this year so far.

I continue to be optimistic about this wildfire season because the atmosphere seems to favor a persistent trough of low pressure just offshore, which works against wildfire growth over the Northwest.

To illustrate, here is the forecast of upper-level heights (like pressure) around 18,000 ft. for July 22nd at 11 PM.   Blue indicates troughing...lower pressure aloft.  A ridge of high pressure is centered over the Rockies.   Heatwaves and major fire situations are associated with a strong ridge of upper-level high pressure along the central British Columbia coast and enhanced high pressure offshore.  This is not the pattern being forecast for the next week or so.


The European Center ensemble of many forecasts shows a similar upper-level pattern on Sunday morning,over a week from now:


In summary,  wildfire acreage is at very low levels over the western U.S. and the Pacific Northwest.  This favorable situation should continue for a while.


15 comments:

  1. What about Canada? Most of the headline-grabbing stuff has been due to Canadian fires so far this year.

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    1. According to https://ciffc.net/situation/ Canada has burnt 9.7M hectares this year, compared to historical averages of a bit over1M hectares, so that's a pretty different picture.

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    2. I am not talking about Canada..... I am talking about the US West Coast. The circulation pattern that makes northern Canada problematic resulted in better than typical conditions over the US southwest.

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  2. Hopefully the trends keep the Canadian smoke out of the Northwest...things can change by August though. Lots of huge wildfires to our north in BC... seems to be heading towards the Midwest due to current patterns.

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  3. The NIFC is predicting above average fire risk for the rest of the summer in the PNW. In fact, they state:

    "All of Washington and much of northern Oregon is expected to be in above average significant fire potential for July. For August and September all of Washington and most of Oregon is expected to be in above average fire potential. For October, elevated significant fire potential will shift west of the Cascades, mainly in Oregon."

    Wondering why their forecast is so different than yours.

    https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/predictive-services/outlooks

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    1. Their July forecast will will not verify. Why is their forecast different from mine? Probably the difference in how we apply forecast model projections. Anyway, they are going for an above-normal fire season in July and I have been projecting just the opposite. At the end of the month you can evaluate our skill.

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    2. Cliff's forecast will be correct for the rest of July at least. Might change in the coming months. He hasn't said anything wrong and has provided evidence for all his claims. The NIFC prediction doesn't seem to have much merit.

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    3. Fire acreage burned so far into July in Eastern Washington may be below normal but the fire danger potential is way above normal due to the warm, dry weather since May. Acres burned and fire potential do not always correlate with each other as other factors, such as ignition from dry lightning which is a prime factor in large fire loss years, comes into play. 1967 saw relatively little fire loss in Eastern Washington despite being one of the warmest, driest summers of record, while 1970 and 1994 saw large fire losses due to dry lightning storms, which were nearly absent in 1967. The NIFC states that the potential is above normal this July, not the acres burned.

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  4. I'll hold my judgement. Still have August and September. Feel sorry for everyone who is downwind of the Canadian smoke.

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    1. Yes. Things may be different in the rest of the country, but in the Northwest, I'm guessing most of our major wildfires (the ones that cause a lot of smoke) start in August (and usually peter out in September).

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    2. This is simply untrue... Last year (2022), most wildfires were late season and strong east winds enhanced the fires and pushed smoke out into the metro area. If you look at the wildfire history for 2021, most fires took place in July... Whether fires start, or smoke from fires in other places such as Canada, depends on the wind patterns. This past July we simply didn't have the right setup for smoke to blow in from Canada (despite many large fires burning to our north) nor for any fires to start in our vicinity. Instead, the winds are correct for the smoke to go to other parts of the country as Canada is experiencing an extreme fire season... This can change at any time of course, but Cliff is correct about July's forecast at least for now.

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  5. What do you think about the current article (from AFP via Yahoo) that the current heat wave is evidence of the "latest example of the threat of global warming"? https://news.yahoo.com/record-heatwaves-sweep-world-us-093731485.html

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    1. Probably a blend of urban heat island effect and some higher global mean temps. Really depends on where or how the data is being collected. This blog routinely explores the more nuanced approach of "Yes, anthropogenic climate change is a thing, but it's not the whole story.

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  6. I would imagine back in 1913 when Death Valley hit 134 degrees that there were just as many heatwaves at that time, they need to consider solar cycles among other cycles that are and will always occur

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    1. That record is disputed... and who is they? If you referring to the media...I think the debate should be more about the implications of such warming and whether its being over sensationalized by the media. It is true that global temperatures are in fact warming ever so slightly with humans partially contributing to it. Solar cycles isn't the sole cause of this warming. Human-induced Global warming is objectively true, but the disagreement should be regarding how we respond to it...

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