Jennifer Balch's paper titled Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS). Jennifer and her team have been getting the attention of the press with articles from the Associated Press, Washington Post, Pacific Standard, NPR, 7News Denver, and USA Today.
More than 10 wildfires burned over 200,000 acres in Southern California in October 2003, many of them started by humans. This satellite image shows strong winds carrying smoke over the Pacific.
Fighting wildfires in the United States costs billions of dollars annually. Public dialog and ongoing research have focused on increasing wildfire risk because of climate warming, overlooking the direct role that people play in igniting wildfires and increasing fire activity. Our analysis of two decades of government agency wildfire records highlights the fundamental role of human ignitions. Human-started wildfires accounted for 84% of all wildfires, tripled the length of the fire season, dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning fires, and were responsible for nearly half of all area burned. National and regional policy efforts to mitigate wildfire-related hazards would benefit from focusing on reducing the human expansion of the fire niche.
See more at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences >