Wildfires, also known as wildland fires or bushfires, are blazes that burn in natural settings, such as grasslands, shrub lands, and forests. Wildfires can incinerate buildings and crops, kill people in adjacent communities, and incur billions of dollars in firefighting costs. However, wildfires also play a critical role in many ecosystems, often leading to a greater diversity of plants and animals in the patchy, recovering landscapes they leave behind. Although most wildfires are triggered by lightning strikes, humans also cause many wildfires, especially in tropical and subtropical areas where people use fire to clear land for agriculture.
Longer, larger, and more frequent wildfires (and longer wildfire seasons) pose a global threat. The reasons for increased danger vary by country and region. A combination of climate and weather factors along with land use policies may combine to produce a severe fire season. The most common factor globally is ascribed to heightened drought conditions that climate scientists link to generalized global warming. In other areas, the destructive fury of natural fires is intensified by a buildup in dried grasses, vegetative debris, and fallen trees and limbs that provide a ready source of combustible fuels. In some regions, volatile debates continue over fire-suppression practices.
Wildfires are costly. Fire management agencies in Canada spend at least $500 million per year on firefighting. Governmental appropriations for firefighting in the United States have increased from an average of $1.1 billion between 1996 and 2001 to $3.1 billion between 2001 and 2008. An estimated 80 percent or more of that increased cost came from protecting the increased number of homes built close to wild areas. For example, wildfires routinely threaten areas near cities in California. In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service alone spent 42 percent of its total budget authority of $5.5 billion to fight fires. The U.S. Forest Service estimated that wildfires annually burn about 5 million acres of U.S. land and predicted that wildfires will increase over the next decade. In 2010, wildfires destroyed 1.38 million hectares (3.42 million acres) in the United States—lower than the ten-year national average of 2.59 million hectares (6.4 million acres). Within a week of its onset in May 2016, the explosive growth of the Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada had experts predicting that the economic damage from the blaze would rival or surpass the costliest catastrophes in Canadian history.
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Longer, larger, and more frequent wildfires (and longer wildfire seasons) pose a global threat. The reasons for increased danger vary by country and region. A combination of climate and weather factors along with land use policies may combine to produce a severe fire season. The most common factor globally is ascribed to heightened drought conditions that climate scientists link to generalized global warming. In other areas, the destructive fury of natural fires is intensified by a buildup in dried grasses, vegetative debris, and fallen trees and limbs that provide a ready source of combustible fuels. In some regions, volatile debates continue over fire-suppression practices.
Wildfires are costly. Fire management agencies in Canada spend at least $500 million per year on firefighting. Governmental appropriations for firefighting in the United States have increased from an average of $1.1 billion between 1996 and 2001 to $3.1 billion between 2001 and 2008. An estimated 80 percent or more of that increased cost came from protecting the increased number of homes built close to wild areas. For example, wildfires routinely threaten areas near cities in California. In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service alone spent 42 percent of its total budget authority of $5.5 billion to fight fires. The U.S. Forest Service estimated that wildfires annually burn about 5 million acres of U.S. land and predicted that wildfires will increase over the next decade. In 2010, wildfires destroyed 1.38 million hectares (3.42 million acres) in the United States—lower than the ten-year national average of 2.59 million hectares (6.4 million acres). Within a week of its onset in May 2016, the explosive growth of the Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada had experts predicting that the economic damage from the blaze would rival or surpass the costliest catastrophes in Canadian history.
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