The dry, hot, downslope Santa Ana winds of Southern California fan late fall wildfires that have largely traveled through – and are fueled by – homes and other structures.
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Articles on Wildfires
Displaying 61 - 80 of 105 articles
The California fires are just the most recent in a series of major wildfires. Together, they suggest we need to look at alternative ways of living with fire.
Communities that are majority black, Hispanic or Native American are over 50 percent more vulnerable to wildfire compared to other communities.
One natural disaster can exacerbate the effects of others – think landslides after wildfires. This means engineers and planners need to rethink how they assess and prepare for risk.
Convincing people to see and appreciate the threats posed by climate change is one of the great challenges of our day. Insurers may be able to succeed where scientists and educators have failed.
As climate change alters temperature and precipitation patterns across the US, it is having especially severe impacts on national parks. These changes could happen faster than many plants and animals can adapt.
Huge fires roared through Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988, scorching one-third of the park. Since then the park has been a valuable lab for studying how forests recover from fires.
A new study shows that natural disasters enrich white victims while hurting people of color, worsening wealth inequality. And government aid contributes to the problem.
The Trump administration wants to step up logging, saying it will benefit wildlife by reducing forest fire risks. But wildfires create habitat for threatened Spotted Owls and many other species.
As California reels from another devastating fire season, environmental resource scholars explain how the state – and other fire-prone areas – can better prepare and coexist with wildfires.
With California suffering another devastating wildfire year, more people are wondering about whether and how global warming is contributing. A climate scientist explains.
Preventing severe wildfires in the UK needs to be a political priority as climate change means they will be a growing problem.
Wildland firefighting has always been a risky job, but development in fire-prone areas is making it more dangerous by putting forest firefighters in situations they are not equipped or trained for.
Climate change, development, past forest management policies and current firefighting practices are creating conditions for large, costly wildfires.
The fires tearing through the Athens region are not an act of God, but a direct result of corruption and systematic disregard for the law.
From Greece, to the UK, to Japan and even Sweden, a slew of places in the Northern Hemisphere are suffering extreme heat. And the chances of extreme heat records tumbling are growing all the time.
A perfect storm of climate, forestry, development and fire management trends are driving up the costs of fighting wildfires.
Many factors can influence people to evacuate or stay in place when disasters threaten. New research using Facebook posts suggests that people with broad social networks are more apt to move.
A historian of wildfires explains the difference between urban and rural fire cultures, and what it means for protecting communities in fire-prone rural areas.
And wildfires rage along the West Coast of North America, parents should know the impact on their children's health, and how to protect them.
Top contributors
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Wildfire Specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension; Adjunct Professor Bren School of Environmental Studies, University of California Santa Barbara
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Sr. Associate Vice President for Research and Research Professor, University of Oregon
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Academic Coordinator, California Institute for Water Resources, University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
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Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Associate Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Purdue University
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David Bowman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania
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ARC DECRA fellow, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Centenary Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne
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Emeritus Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
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Professor of Conservation Science, Lancaster University
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Associate Professor of Forest and Natural Resource Policy, Colorado State University
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Assistant Professor of Community and Environmental Health, Boise State University
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Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellow, Purdue University
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Associate Professor of Geography and Director, Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder
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Honorary Professor, School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne
