EXPERTS ADVISORY

More than 100 wildfires are burning across Canada and the United States, the largest of which is located in California. Dubbed the Park Fire, it has burned more than 385,000 acres, or about 601 square miles. University of Michigan experts are available to comment.

Paige Fischer, associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, is a social scientist who studies wildfires. She conducts research on how people experience and perceive wildfire risk, as well as what motivates and constrains them in taking action to reduce risk. She also examines how people adapt to long-term changes in climate conditions that drive wildfire risk.

“This summer’s wildfires are consistent with the trend scientists have expected and the public has experienced in recent years—wildfires are becoming more damaging, and in many places, they are occurring with greater frequency, magnitude and severity,” said Fischer, principal investigator of the Western Forest and Fire Initiative at U-M.

“Beyond the existential crisis that wildfires pose to neighborhoods and communities in the wildland-urban interface, we should be extremely concerned about wildfire impact that is most difficult to control: toxic smoke. We are just beginning to understand how bad wildfire smoke is for human health and how many people are exposed, especially from vulnerable populations.”

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Jonathan Overpeck is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is an expert on climate and weather extremes, sea-level rise, and the impacts of climate change and options for dealing with it. He served as a lead author on the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 and 2014 reports.

“The current North American wildfire season is surging across the western U.S. and Canada, made worse by the warming and drying effects of human-caused climate change, he said. “As climate change worsens, so too does the risk of ever larger and more severe wildfires.

“The growing wildfire crisis is also leading to significant declines in air quality, including far from the wildfires themselves, as well as often devastating consequences for human infrastructure and communities where fires are occurring. Erosion, landslides and water contamination are also becoming larger problems as climate change-supercharged wildfire seasons continue to get worse.”

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Richard Rood, professor of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering, can discuss the intersections of wildfires and climate, and climate and society.

“Over the last few years, fire season has become routine. This is especially true in the U.S. and Canadian West, and summer 2023 showed millions that wildfire in the East is also possible,” he said. “If fires are hundreds or a thousand miles distant, the smoke can cover much of the continent and even cross oceans. The smoke causes significant degradation of air quality, as well as smoggy conditions that many find disheartening.

“The warming climate contributes to a lengthening of fire season, as well as the intensity and size of fires. The higher temperatures dry out fuels, forests and grasslands, more quickly than in the past. Extreme heat dries out regions before drought conditions set it.

“Chronic drought, especially in the West, contributes to massive fires. Though landscape management is important to fire prevention, the warming climate changes what is happening on the ground, which challenges even the best of our historical practices.”

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This media advisory was originally posted on Michigan News website.