Weather & Science
How Climate Change Makes Wildfires Much Worse
The fires sending smoke across North America are part of a global trend toward more frequent and destructive blazes, says Thomas Smith of the London School of Economics.
A forest burns during the Mosquito Fire near Foresthill, California, on Sept. 7, 2022.
Photographer: David Odisho/BloombergHotter, drier conditions brought about by greenhouse gas pollution make wildfires like those burning in Quebec more common in forests throughout the planet’s temperate zones.
An unseasonably hot spring this year primed trees, plants and soil for the extraordinary event that’s turned skies orange above New York City. Its scale calls to mind 2020’s Siberian fires: Human-caused climate change made the heat wave behind that event at least 600 times more likely.