Here’s A Strategy For Managing Our Nation’s Fire Seasons, Like 2020
As of late fall, wildfires are still smoldering under snowfall in Colorado. I am hoping that the cold and snowy weather over the last few days will finally put to bed the 2020 fire season in my state. Through much of October, great pillars of smoke rose in the sky and ash rained down from at least four major fall wildfires, affecting millions in the urban corridors east of the Rocky Mountains.
October wildfires are rare in Colorado, especially large ones that burn more than 1,000 acres. Only about a dozen that size have burned since 1984, out of 335 in the state over that period.
This fall’s major blazes are a signal of climate change in the here and now. And they’re not the only such evidence in a record hot and dry 2020 fire season, where states across the West are still putting out ho...