Scientists are expecting the frequency of wildfires to increase with the warming of the climate in decades to come. This rise in the number of wildfires is also expected to lead to a greater presence of smoke which will in turn adversely affect the quality of air.  In a pioneer study, the researchers investigated the implications of climate change on future forest wildfires and as well as on the quality of air in the western region of the United States.  Studies prior to this one had sought to investigate the links between the severity of wildfires and climate change in the west and elsewhere. This new study is the first attempt at quantifying the impact of future wildfires on the quality of air.

Once a fire is started by human activity or lightening, a more serious conflagration may result due to the drying of the underbrush by warmer temperatures. As such, scientists predict that an increase in wildfires could have a major impact on human health, seeing as smoke and other particles from the wildfires adversely affects the quality of air.

This study was conducted using a number of models, by which the scientists were able to predict that the geographic area that is typically burned by wildfires in the western region of the united states could increase by an estimated 50% by the 2050’s, because of the witnessed rise in temperatures. The forests of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest are likely to witness the greatest increases in the area burned by wildfires, of about 75 – 175%. Moreover, because of the extra burning of wildfires throughout the western United States, an important type of smoke particle known as the organic carbon aerosols would increase on average by an estimated 40% during the next half a century or so.

This research was conducted by examining a 25 year old record of observed meteorology and fire statistics, in order to determine those meteorological factors that could best predict the area burned by wildfires for each of the ecosystems found in the western region of the United States. In order to see how these meteorological factors could change in the coming decades, the scientists ran a global climate model out to 2055, by following the A1B scenario in greenhouse gas emissions.

By hypothesizing that the relationships between meteorology and areas burned by wildfires will remain the same in future, scientists were able to predict wildfire activity and emissions between the years 2000-2055.

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