By Jim Steele

1. There is a global fire crisis! The truth: Fires are totally driven by local conditions. Framing wildfires as a global crisis is a misleading semantic device to frame fires as part of a CO2 driven global warming narrative. For example (GRAPHIC A), the American southwest’s naturally dry climate always makes that region vulnerable to fire weather. California receives no moisture during the 4 months of summer & naturally drying vegetation. In contrast eastern USA gets most of its rains during the summer and suffers much fewer fires.

2. Wildfires have Dramatically Increased! The truth: Graphs (GRAPHIC B), only showing changes in wildfire frequency since 1950 are egregiously cherry-picking the timeline. Long term research (GRAPHIC C) shows wildfire were far more frequent before 1900. Afterwards intensive fire suppression dropped fire frequency to all time lows. However, fire suppression was allowing a dangerous accumulation of ground fuels. So, over the past 3 decades, fire suppression policies have been relaxed to allow more fires.

3. Climate Crisis Expanded Fire season to All Year! The truth: Natural fire season is caused by lightning ignitions and peaks in June thru August (GRAPHIC D blue bars). It’s human ignitions that have expanded the fire season (GRAPHIC D red bars). 85% to 95% of all fires are due to human ignitions. In the US, 13% are started by arsonists.

4. Global Warming Made Vegetation More Flammable: The truth: We all know starting a sustainable campfire requires flammable tinder and kindling (GRAPHIC E). Fire experts call tinder 1-hour fuels and kindling 10-hour and 100-hour fuels (GRAPHIC F). That means the tinder and kindling that starts wildfires only require 1 to 4 days of dry weather to become highly flammable. 1 to 4 days is weather, NOT climate. Flammable fuels that start wildfires have nothing to do with climate change which requires at least 30 years of change to detect.

5. Reporting Increased Burnt Area Fails to Mention Vegetation Type! The truth: Grass and shrub fires dominated by 1-hour and 10-hour fuels account for 70% of the burnt area since 1990. (GRAPHIC G)The extensive recent Texas panhandle fire is an example of a human ignition starting a prairie grass fire during Texas’ naturally driest month of the year. Furthermore, 1-hour fuels in grass and shrublands have increased due the increase in invasive cheat grass. Unlike most native grasses, cheat grass is an annual that dies and dries out by early spring, providing fuels for earlier fires. (GRAPHIC H)

Furthermore, in the deserts of the American southwest, limited ground fuel controls fire frequency. It once took 80 to 100 years to accumulate enough ground fuel to sustain a desert wildfire. Now cheat grass has added abundant ground fuels that have dramatically increase western USA’s desert wildfire frequency.

6. Mindlessly Blame CO2 warming for Increased Aridity! The truth: Studies of precipitation since 1998 found only 12% of the world has had any significant changes in precipitation. Only 6% has resulted in increased aridity. (GRAPHIC I) Most of that detected increased aridity in California was caused by natural La Nina-like conditions during the research’s time period.

Although a 20-year period of a drier climate associated with La Nina-like conditions will dry out the biggest dead logs, so they more easily burn, changes in wildfire frequency and burnt area extent, have absolutely nothing to do with climate change.