Perhaps the most impactful Washington State wildfire of this summer is the Little Giant Fire near Lake Chelan, ignited on July 15 by a lightning storm and now extending over 135,985 acres (see map below)
The fire is still active today, with plenty of smoke and flames (see satellite image yesterday afternoon)
There are many claims that this fire resulted from climate change, drought, and extreme heat (see below).
As I will demonstrate in this blog, such claims are demonstrably false.
One local newspaper has been particularly over the top with such claims (see below).
Those blaming the Little Giant Fire on global warming make several unfounded claims:
(1) That the fire was unusual, representing something new and unprecedented
(2) That lightning, which initiated the fire, is increasing due to global warming
(3) That the low snowpack this year (driven by global warming) was of central importance, resulting in far earlier drying of the surface. That in a "normal" year before global warming, the fire origin location would have been snow-covered.
(4) That drought contributed to the surface fuels being unusually dry at the time of the lightning strikes.
All these claims can be easily shown to be false.
Location of the Fire Initiation
There are several claims that the fire started at 5000 ft or above.
Satellite-based fire detection shows the fire initiation was down on the slopes at around 3900 ft (the red dot shows the start location).
It was claimed that the fire started in the forest; in reality, it began in a debris field of previous burns with downed logs, grass, and bushes (red dot shows the initiation location).
Below is a view of the fire-start area from below before it started.
The Truth About the Snowpack
Previous Fires
The region of the Little Giant Fire has burned many times before, including the historical period before the current global warming.
To demonstrate this, below are the regional fire areas from 1973 until 2025. Much of the Little Giant Fire's footprint burned during that period.
For example, in 1994, the Tyee Creek fire also started in mid-July and burned a similar area. It was also started by lightning.
The region around Lake Chelan is very vulnerable to wildfire for many reasons.
Fuel Moisture
Many of the online and media claims of global warming and drought contributions to the Chelan wildfire claim that the fuel moistures were low.
The data shows otherwise.
Below are the estimated fuel moisture levels over the eastern slopes of the Cascade for bush (100-hr) and log-size (1000 hr) fuels.
They were within normal levels (gray shading). Fuels are normally dry after mid-July on the Cascade slopes. Dry enough to burn without global warming.
While it may not be a factor in this situation, a common factor is the density-induced drought condition (for lack of an official name). Many forested and fire-prone areas are grossly over stocked. Each stem in the ground acts like a straw reducing the soil moisture and transpiring the water. On average, forested areas in the U.S. have 60% more merchantable timber thsn was present in 1953, with fuel load probably doubled that. While precipitation levels have remained variable but with a consistent trend, the vegetative load has increased considerably, reducing the vigor of individual plants and trees and decreasing fire resistance.
ReplyDeleteWe desperately need to recommence actual forest management practices.
Cliff, your local data may be right, but the argument proves less than the headline. Attribution science doesn't claim warming caused any single fire. It claims warming shifts the odds: longer snow-free seasons, higher vapor pressure deficit, more days when fuels sit at ignitable dryness. Showing 2026 conditions fell within the historical range doesn't refute a shifted distribution, any more than a smoker's cancer is exonerated because nonsmokers get cancer too. A few specific issues: (1) NLDN trend analysis is confounded by detection-efficiency and sensor upgrades over the record, so "no observed lightning trend" is weaker than presented; (2) the fact that this region burned in 1970 and 1994 is fully consistent with a fire-prone landscape whose burn frequency and area are increasing, which the western US record shows (Abatzoglou & Williams 2016, PNAS); (3) fuel moisture "within normal" for mid-July says nothing about whether the window of fire-ready conditions is widening. You've refuted a strawman (climate change started this fire) while leaving the actual scientific claim (warming makes fires like this more likely and larger) untouched. Symmetric standards, please: single events can't prove climate causation, but they can't disprove it either.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you are correct. This is not about odds. As shown in the blog, global warming was not an element in the contributors to the fire. Regarding lightning...you got it reverse.d Since detection efficiency would be increasing, the DECLINE in lightning would be even greater. Your point 2 does not make any sense. I could have gone back earlier with other fires, but 1970 is certainly before GW started to increase rapidly. Your (3) does not make any sense. Not one is saying a singe event either proves or disapproves anything.
DeleteHere is my observation of the Entiat and Lake Chelan valleys from the time I first observed them in 1964. In the Entiat valley in 1964 there was a nearly continuous forest on both sides of the valley from just above Ardenvoir to near the source of the river at Ice Lakes. There was no sign of any large burned areas in the forest area and it looked like the trees were fairly mature. If there were any significant fires prior to 1970 they must have been mainly in the scanter forest areas in the lower valley. Since the 1970 fires, most of the Entiat valley, both forest area and less forested area, has burned from the upper to the lower end, in the large fires of 1970, 1988, 1994 and this century. This is also true of the Lake Chelan valley. There was no visible large burned areas on either side of the lake prior to the 1968 fire which started near Manson and burned east to above Chelan. Since then, several large fires beginning in 1970 have burned nearly the entire slopes on both sides of the lake from Stehekin to the lower end of the lake.
DeleteEarlier in the century and before there were many big fires. The trees had more separation. Then we suppressed fire for a half century and the local forecast become dense and overgrown. We had a cool/wet period during mid century. Flammable invasive grass moved iin. All this set up big fires starting in the 60s. Global warming had little to do with it.
DeleteI love the article and the first comment. I would like to add that big environmental nonprofits routinely sue to block or delay thinning, prescribed burns, and cattle grazing on public lands—tools that reduce wildfire fuel loads. These lawsuits leave forests overcrowded and rangelands unmanaged, increasing the risk of catastrophic fires. When they win or settle, they often recover attorney fees from taxpayers under the Equal Access to Justice Act, turning litigation into a funding source that sustains more of the same lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteThe general impression I get from your analysis of the reasons for the large Little Giant fire (and the other large fires Eastern Washington and Oregon} is that they were not due to unusual warmth and dryness. We have had three fires this summer in Eastern Washington that have burned in excess of 100,000 acres each, plus several others in excess of 10,000 acres, and even larger ones in Eastern Oregon. I do not know of any single year in the last 100 years that Eastern Washington has seen three fires of this size. One cannot get this much loss without the fuels being unusually dry and the dryness is due to heat and lack of moisture. You show the 100 and 1000 hour time lag graphs but these seem to be an average of a large area and not specific to the fire areas. The fuels in the fire areas had to be unusually dry to burn this much area and with this much intensity. One factor not considered in the 100 and 1000 hour time lag fuel model, is wind, which on drier days can greatly increase moisture loss. May and June of this year were windier than usual with the average wind speed at Wenatchee being almost twice normal for both months. (10 mph for May, 11mph for June when normal for both months is about 6 mph).Rainfall was below normal in both May and June and no measurable rain fell in the fire area in the 5 weeks prior to the fire. The average maximum temperature at Wenatchee for that 5-week period was about 5 degrees above normal and temperatures, both maximum and minimum, have been above normal for every month of this year so far at Wenatchee.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your statement about the fire loss in the Entiat valley in 1970: The main Entiat fire, which was in the middle valley area, covered about 53,000 acres, with another fire farther south in the valley of about 20,000 acres. 80% of the valley did not burn that year.
your arguments are not convincing. The fact we had a lot of lightning fires can be explained by a LOT OF LIGHTING and land management and invasive flammable vegetation. You mention winds--which are not correlated with warming.
DeleteI do so hope the USFS's wildfire experts publish their findings of the causes of these, and other wildfires along the Cascade East Slopes this summer, at the end of this years' wildfire season.
DeleteCliff, what does water-year precipitation for Chelan have to do with any of this?
ReplyDeleteThe USGS flow gauge on the Chiwawa River is a better indicator of recent precipitation in the Chiwawa River drainage. When the fire started, it was running around 280 cfs. It was running around half (or less) the long-term median all summer.
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-12456500/#dataTypeId=continuous-00060-0&showFieldMeasurements=false&startDT=2026-06-01&endDT=2026-08-19&showMedian=true
If you look at the site for a longer period, you will find the opposite situation....it was running well ABOVE normal for most the winter and spring. Only during snowmelt season was it below normal.
DeleteEven though the fire started at 3900', it is directly downslope from much higher 6900'+ terrain, which would definitely still have snow melting in a normal snowpack year. The high elevation snow directly above the 3900' would still make the 3900' significantly wetter, as snow melts and flows downslope as water.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that is true...the upper snow melt water would collect in the rivers---not on the lower slopes with the fires.
DeleteDoesn’t pretty much every location in WA have snow somewhere higher and some distance away at all times of the year? What is the distance and elevation drop that scares the fire into submission?
DeleteIt’s clear that very recently melted snow causes the ground to be wet. After that it’s all about rivers.
Those who think "snow melt" (even far from the range) occurs much beyond March are missing the boat, so to speak - as-if "snow melt" has anything near the importance of "just plain rain" (precipitation). It takes a LOT of melted snow to fill a bucket comparied to dense raindrops. A fair amount of the actual water tied-up in snow evaporates, too. I find "snowfall" stats (both volume and melt date) grossly over-correlated to (frankly) everything (overall freshwater supply [some infiltrates, part of that eventually providing streams' baseflow]. As for the "wildfire" correlation - crikey.
DeleteThanks Cliff,
ReplyDeleteThe fire is 75 miles north of me, so I havent paid much attention.
Images are very helpful.
Maybe I'm the only one that noticed:
advanced BASIC, bad luck, controlled chaos; Little Giant
Thank you Professor! I really enjoy your analysis and commentary on local weather events and other topics. I’m hoping we get some lightning in western WA later this week as some are predicting.
ReplyDeleteI very much appreciate your blogs explaining weather reality while you simultaneously refute the delusions of the MSM. I also get a real hoot from the non-credentialed know-it-alls who conjure up verbose nonsense (probably with the help of climate change biased AI agents) in a vain attempt to counter your facts. Keep up the excellent work!
ReplyDeleteInteresting read, as is previous articles on the same subject on what is not connected to "current global warming." Can you write a post of what you see IS connected to "current global warming?"
ReplyDeleteOur planet has slowly warmed up....and human forcing is a significant contributor. Will do a blog about it---have done many in to the past of this topic.
DeleteThe folks on scene managing the Little Giant Fire have stated several times that they are seeing record low fuel moisture in the Entiat and surrounding area. Watch any of the fire briefings and they will mention this. I travel up the Entiat valley frequently in the winter. There were many south facing slopes that never had more than a few inches of snow if any at all for the entire winter when they usually have 1-2 feet at least. The snotel averages do not account for the drastic differences in snowpack between solar aspects, wind scoured slopes, and areas with thicker tree canopy. Those factors matter a great deal when a fire is working its way thru. The fire happened to hit a south facing slope during the big wind event and it made a run all the way across the lake. That slope barely had any snow all winter. I’m not saying this is due to climate change. I am saying that the data and averages you are analyzing for snowpack and fuel moisture is too generalized and is not matching up with the conditions on the ground.
ReplyDeleteThese claim of record low fuel moisture are completely unsupported by observations or modeling. Simply not true. Can you provide any evidence for it? Official numbers contradict them. SNOTEL sites have varied locations and aspects.
Delete"The folks on scene managing the Little Giant Fire".. are firefighters.
DeleteResource advisors, botanists, biologists, fire behavior analysts, recreation managers, meteorologists, etc. These people are collaborating with fire teams and helping to manage the fire response and decision making from a high level. They might work for a gov’t agency and provide insight on things such as how a dozer line should be restored. There are many professionals on large multi-jurisdictional fires who do not engage in firefighting as a hotshot crew, engine crew, air crew, or heavy equipment crew does. I wouldn't necessarily call every single position on a large fire a firefighter
DeleteIt's Friday afternoon, and oof, I'm looking forward to a new air mass with lower dewpoints. Once the DP exceeds 57F, I feel every stinkin' degree. I can take quite a bit of heat, but I'm extremely sensitive to even the minimal amount of humidity we get here. DP of 59? I run to the A/C, even if the temp is in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteThe Chiwawa River, the drainage where Little Giant started and took off, was running at half or less its normal flow all summer. Your rebuttal was that it was running high in the winter and spring, seeming to imply that this counters the climate change narrative. But warm temperatures caused winter precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow, and what did fall as snow melted early in a warm spring, leaving the basin very dry going into summer. This does not seem inconsistent with climate change playing a role.
ReplyDeleteCiting annual precipitation in a town 40 miles away on the edge of the desert being near its normal, very low level doesn't really support a "so much for drought!" proclamation for the Chiwawa, especially in opposition to a plot showing the river carrying half its usual water all through fire season.
Now you're contradicting what the firefighters on the scene are saying about fuel moisture levels in their briefings, seemingly based on a plot of the 100- and 1000-hour fuel moisture. Those are both specifically indices of DEAD fuels, integrated over a region NW05 that runs all the way down into Oregon. Even if they are locally accurate, dead fuel moisture reflects relatively recent rainfall and humidity (unsurprisingly low at this time of year) and not the pathway people are asserting regarding snowpack: poor snowpack --> less water underground in the root zone --> lower moisture content in the live vegetation --> accelerated fire growth through that vegetation.
Speaking of which, the picture you posted as a presumably representative sample of what burned was not representative of the Chiwawa valley at all. The fire started in an old burn half-way up the mountain, but when it took off it tore through a densely vegetated, unburned river valley that just had a massive fuel removal logging operation just last year. The 2014 burn scar in your Entiat Falls picture is a small proportion of the area Little Giant has burned.
It might not hurt to clarify some of these real facts in your post.
Jason... there are a lot of factual issues with your comments. We all agree snowpack was low this year. Climate change can contribute to it. But it is not relevant for the elevations and times we are discussing. In a normal year, the snowpack would have been long gone. Your town 40 miles away comment is not relevant...all local precip sites showed the same thing. Firefighters do not measure fuel moisture....the numbers are clear. And the ERC numbers, which consider live future moisture, indicate the same thing: fuel moisture was near normal at the start of the fire. These are the facts. Regarding fuels, PLEASE LOOK AT HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGERY. Much of the fire run was in past fire debris and light vegetation. Bottom line: my post has the "real facts:
Delete'Real'
ReplyDelete