Science Source
Decreasing fire season precipitation increased recent western US forest wildfire activity
- States that increases in area burned by wildfires in the western United States have been widely attributed to reduced winter snowpack or increased summer temperatures
- Shows that previously unnoted declines in summer precipitation from 1979 to 2016 across 31–45% of the forested areas in the western United States are strongly associated with burned area variations
- Shows that the number of wetting rain days (WRD; days with precipitation ≥2.54 mm) during the fire season partially regulated the temperature and subsequent vapor pressure deficit (VPD) previously implicated as a primary driver of annual wildfire area burned
- Uses path analysis to decompose the relative influence of declining snowpack, rising temperatures, and declining precipitation on observed fire activity increases
- Results suggest that precipitation during the fire season exerts the strongest control on burned area either directly through its wetting effects or indirectly through feedbacks to VPD
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