Over the past four weeks, wildfires have baffled experts and charted unexpectedly wide paths across the western United States.
As of Sept. 17, the official Red Cross Wildfire Map showed forty-seven active wildfire sites across the Pacific Northwest and western seaboard. During the most intense summer period, as many as 123 wildfires burned across Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, California, and Utah. Fires are currently raging as far south as San Jose, California, as far west as Bozeman, Montana, and as far north as the Canadian border. In Montana alone, more than one million acres of land have already been affected.
The power and destructiveness of these fires has been strengthened by other factors, both human and environmental. According to the New York Times, “More large, uncontrolled wildfires were burning in 10 Western states in early September than at any comparable time since 2006.”
Because of last year’s tame La Niña winter, which covered the Sierra Nevadas in deep snowdrifts and filled reservoirs with enough excess water to end California’s record three-year drought, many experts anticipated a relatively mild wildfire season in 2017. However, some others are pointing to the months of record-breaking heat across the Mountain West and Pacific coast as a cause. The current wildfire’s speed and tenacity seems to suggest that such high temperatures may counteract or even overpower the dampening influence of winter storms, a suggestion which contradicts years of conventional wisdom.
According to research from The Atlantic, state governments’ aggressive firefighting protocols, designed to quash large blazes and protect metropolitan areas, likely result in “denser and more fire-prone forests than the long-term average for the West.” Add to these long-term factors incidental human actions—misplaced fireworks, badly managed campfires, or arson—and the chances of disaster can skyrocket.
The fires have had a predictable impact on human activity and health. The Los Angeles Times reported that a wide swath of homes near Los Angeles were evacuated. Smoky air forced school and road closures across the state of Washington, while large mandatory evacuations swept California after the Helena fire destroyed 72 homes in rural Trinity County.
The wildfires threaten not only human habitation, but also precious wilderness spaces and natural resources. On Sept. 5, NPR reported that the historic Sperry Chalet, a 103-year-old hiking lodge deep in the heart of Glacier National Park, had succumbed to the flames. The Pacific Coast Trail, a popular backpacking destination that draws visitors from all over the world, charts a path straight through the most intense , and the extreme loss of undergrowth may put the trail in danger from erosion during snowmelt season. One of the most catastrophic blazes, the Eagle Creek fire, also threatens endangered plant and animal populations the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. For now, many parks’ future remains in jeopardy.
Though loss of human life has been comparably small, the fire’s impact on natural landscapes may be unprecedented. Most predictions estimate that the fires will not be contained until mid to late October. In an interview with NPR, Chris Wilcox of the National Interagency Fire Center said, “It really hasn’t stopped .”