Wildfire season has begun to awaken in Western states, with smoke from the summer's first crop of fires being spotted from space.
In images taken by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) onboard the Landsat 9 satellite, a blaze can be seen scorching the Willamette National Forest in Oregon on August 1, while the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite snapped a similar fire burning in Idaho on July 31.
These are two of 60 fires that are burning across nine U.S. states in early August, the NASA Earth Laboratory said, part of an unusually inactive fire season for this time of year.
The Oregon fire, named the Bedrock Fire, ignited on July 22, and as of August 3, has burned about 12,200 acres of land. According to the Forest Service, the fire was growing at about 1,000 acres every day and has led to closures of nearby forest areas and spread smoke across central Oregon.
The Bedrock Fire is Oregon's second largest of the season after the Flat Fire in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, which has burned 29,000 acres.
Despite this summer's record-breaking high temperatures, 2023 has been a quiet year for wildfires, with 30,800 burning across the country since the start of the year. The fires have burned 1.2 million acres, the lowest to date in the last 10 years, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center. The 10-year average for area burned by August 3 is 3.8 million acres.
"For California and the Southwest, the below- or near-average predictions are due in large part to significant winter snowpack and/or above-average precipitation the spring and expected over summer," Philip Higuera, professor of fire ecology at the W.A. Frankie College of Forestry and Conservation previously told Newsweek.
"For the Pacific Northwest, the above-average changes for large wildfires are due to warmer-than-average temperatures experienced this spring, and expected through September, combined with below-average precipitation."
As of August 4, there are 12 large fires burning in New Mexico, 11 in Arizona, nine in Alaska, five in California, five in Oregon, two in Texas and one in Washington.
"The biggest problem with wildfires apart from the immediate danger is the decrease in air quality," Mark Maslin, a professor of earth system sciences at University College London, previously told Newsweek.
"This is very severe because the soot and smoke can cause huge issues [for] people with sensitive respiratory diseases."
The other satellite images show the Elkhorn Fire in Idaho, which is currently the largest of six burning in the state.
This year's lower-than-average fire season in the West may not be seen again in the years to come, however, due to the effects of climate change.
"Extensive wildfire activity, particularly in forests, is strongly related to seasonal and annual climate conditions—temperature and precipitation—we predict, and we see clearly, an increase in wildfire activity as our globe continues to warm," Higuera said.
"There is abundant and robust scientific research linking increased wildfire activity in the West and many other regions globally to warmer, drier conditions, not only over summer, but increasingly in spring and fall—extending the time window each year when fuels are dry enough to ignite and for fire to spread."
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Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jess Thomson is a Newsweek Science Reporter based in London UK. Her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. ... Read more
