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Emily Butler

Salt Lake Community College

Severe Weather, ATMO 1010

Derek Mallia

December 8, 2017

Wildfires across the Western United States

A wildfire is an uncontrolled, unplanned and unpredictable fire that can burn

anything in its path whether that is a forest, sage brush, grass land or even houses,

farming structures or businesses. Wildfires existed long before humans were on earth

but when humans did make an appearance the amount of wildfires not only increased

but also became more intense as time went on. As humans develop near these high-risk

areas they put themselves at risk and raise the risk as well with bringing in foreign

chemicals and materials such as gas lines and structures that are not normally found in

nature but can cause a fire to burn more intense. While these may be factors in wild

fires another primary source of wildfires is associated with spring and summer

temperature (Westerling, 2006) higher temperatures especially into triple digits cause

snow to melt faster and dry up any water remaining.


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The Western United States is having one of the worst fire seasons this year with

over 100 active wildfires and over 41 of the being uncontained and there isnt much

relief in sight with the dry conditions, wind and lack of control over the blazes. An

example of this is the fires blazing through California especially through LA, as we all

know California has had terrible droughts the past few years but recently (before all of

the blazes began) they had a substantial amount of precipitation in 2016. Now as logical

human beings we would see this information and believe that theyre safe from

wildfires but that is far from the truth. When a dry region receives an abundance of

precipitation this causes vegetation to grow and thrive but when followed by a severe

drought or one of the hottest summers on record being in the triple digits daily this

vegetation dries out and becomes prime kindle for wildfires.

With the population in the Western United States being 76 billion and climbing,

with this fast growing population housing developments are a necessity but they are

pushing their way closer to wild lands and forests more than ever. When you combine

dry lands with automobiles, recreational grills, cigarettes and structures these are prime

conditions for an accidental or even an intentional fire that can spread fast and quickly

become out of control. In 2017 in the western states over 2 million acres have been

burned by wild fires both man-made and natural (from lightning strikes and hot

temperatures) and as of September 2017 over 25,000 firefighters have responded to the

call for help fighting these blazes. These fires are not only destroying wild lands, wild life

and homes or whatever happens to be in their path of destruction they are also causing

our air to become polluted which affects our health.


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In 2013 it was found that Wildfires burning within 50-100 miles of a city

routinely caused air quality to be 5 to 15 times worse than normal (Central, 2013) the

chemicals that are being released into the air and taken into our bodies causes eye

irritation, breathing impairment and can cause irritation to diseases already present

within the body. These fires are not only damaging to the human and wildlife around

them but it adds more chemicals to our ozone (ground level) that is pollution and not

safe for our health. The smoke from wildfires contains many dangerous chemicals such

as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic

hydrocarbons, and volatile organic compounds (Bowman, 2009) and these chemicals

can cause premature mortality especially relating to our cardiovascular and respiratory

systems. But with that being said a healthy human without preexisting conditions may

not be affected by the wildfire smoke if not exposed to it for long periods of time. The

firefighters who fight these blazes are at bigger risk than the citizens fleeing the flames,

firefighters are running into the danger and putting their health at risk and although

health officials cant put 100% of the blame on their occupation many fire fighters who

fought big blazes have had health issues throughout their lives.

As time is ticking away there have been patterns found in nature and some of

those patterns include wildfires. As mentioned earlier the pattern of abundance

moisture with scorching hot temperatures following is the prefect recipe for a wildfire

and it is predicted with the effects of climate change that pattern will be seen more

often than we think. Since the 1980s the fire seasons in the Western States has

increased by 78 days in comparison to the previous decade and these increases were
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taking place in the Rockies of the Western states where there was an abundance of

snow from the winter and rain from the spring. But the difference between these years

was the time of year the snow was melting earlier than previous years meaning that

plants were growing earlier in the year but with the hotter temperatures were

becoming dried out quickly. The

temperature difference between

decades shows a pattern of snow

melting happening earlier in the year

because of rising temperatures and the

temperatures are reaching new records

causing the region to become more

susceptible to wildfires earlier in the year.

While the trends and patterns of climate have an impact on wildfires there is

another pattern that needs to be evaluated and that is the land use within our wild life

and how that has had an effect on our wildfires and the way they are burning. After the

boom in logging in the 19th century Forest regrowth combined with an absence of

extensive fires, promoted forest structure changes and bio-mass accumulation, which

now reduce the effectiveness of fire suppression and increase the size of wildfires and

total area burned (Westerling, 2006) so because of the previous use of the wild land

the sensitivity may be heightened for fires. Another factor to take into account is the

increased frequencies of wild land use for recreation, as the season for outdoor
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activities grow because of the warm temperatures the risks of accidental fires being set

in red zones becomes more of a risk even with restrictions put in place.

These conditions that are being presented need to be taken more seriously as

we do not see the media covering these fires as much as we should with how severe

they are and destructive. This destruction is happening not only to the wild land, houses

and business that have been affected now but to our future. These fires are damaging

our ozone, our wild lands as they may take years to grow back because of the damage

that was caused to the ecosystem with the animals fleeing for their safety or even dying.

What is undeniable is that the western states in the US are in a state of crises

with the amount of fires that were and are currently burning, these fires have exceeded

over 2 billion dollars in damage in just 2017 alone and these loses are not including the

loss of life whether human or animal. These fires will continue to grow stronger as the

time goes on if we cannot find a way to stop these trends that come with climate

change, when you see the facts as clear as 2 billion dollars in damages and over 2 million

acres of land lost and these will continue to rise if nothing is done. Humans must take a

look at their carbon emissions and where theyre building in the ecosystem and how

that may have an impact so this trend doesnt become worse.


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Citations
https://www.census.gov/popclock/data_tables.php?component=growth

Central, C. (2013, October 25). Report: Wildfires & Air Pollution, A Hidden

Hazard. Retrieved December 1, 2017, from http://www.climatecentral.org/news/report-

wildfires-and-air-pollution-a-hidden-hazard-16651

K. L. (2017, September 14). Nearly 2 million acres of land are burning across the

US in one of the worst fire seasons we've ever seen. Retrieved December 3, 2017,

from http://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-season-western-us-2017-9

Tang, Y., Zhong, S., Luo, L., Bian, X., Heilman, W. E., & Winkler, J. (2015). The

Potential Impact of Regional Climate Change on Fire Weather in the United States.

Annals Of The Association Of American Geographers, 105(1), 1-21.

Reid, C. E., Brauer, M., Johnston, F. H., Jerrett, M., Balmes, J. R., & Elliott, C. T.

(2016). Critical Review of Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke Exposure. Environmental

Health Perspectives, 124(9), 1334-1343. doi:10.1289/ehp.1409277

Adetona, O., Reinhardt, T. E., Domitrovich, J., Broyles, G., Adetona, A. M., Kleinman, M.

T., & ... Naeher, L. P. (2016). Review of the health effects of wildland fire smoke on
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wildland firefighters and the public. Inhalation Toxicology, 28(3), 95-139.

doi:10.3109/08958378.2016.1145771

http://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-season-western-us-2017-9 (image)

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