Scenes of residents and tourists cowering on beaches to escape ferocious wildfires engulfing all before them are, undeniably, of great concern to us all. And seeing such scenes on the eve of the publication of an IPCC assessment report that focuses executive attention upon increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events only adds to their poignancy. We know already that scientists are obsessed with the necessary role that climate change plays in events such as the recent Greek forest fires. The fact that a warming planet must, perforce, lead to extended burning seasons is difficult to deny. So surely there is nothing left to be said.

Except, when it comes to forest fires, there’s always plenty more to be said. You might not suspect so when reading the typically simplistic reports emerging from the mainstream media, but trends in such fires are always a result of a complex interplay between climatic change, availability of combustible material and human activity. The Greek fires are no exception, so let us look under the hood a little to see what the full picture looks like.

Source material

I have taken as my main source of information an analysis of Greek forest fires provided by the Climatechangepost website. This is a site dedicated to the promotion of the various adaptation measures deemed necessary to deal with climate change. The site does not entertain sceptical views regarding anthropogenic climate change, and so you may be assured that no part of the analysis was written specifically for the benefit of those with a sceptical mind-set. Nevertheless, I choose here to highlight those elements of the analysis that place the Greek fires in their broader context, since this may be of interest to the curious. If you wish instead to make up your own mind, then by all means consult the Climatechangepost analysis directly. If you are happy to accept my summary of highlights, then please read on:

1) The number of fires and areas burnt is correlated with rainfall and not temperature

Looking back at the historical trend between 1900 and 2010, the analysis states:

“During the period 1961–1997 there was a statistically significant increasing trend and a positive correlation between the number of fires and area burned and the annual drought episodes in Greece (1,2). Summer drought episodes did not show any particular trend for the same period. The average number of fires and area burned were significantly higher in Greece during the sub-period 1978–1997, when Greece entered a prolonged period of drought, compared to the previous sub-period 1961–1977 (1). From a statistical analysis of fire occurrence in Greece during 1900–2010 it was concluded that total area burned at the national scale is controlled by precipitation totals rather than air temperature (3).”

The distinction between increased temperature and drought may seem academic, but the two do not necessarily correlate and this has implications for Detection & Attribution studies that attempt to attribute local drought events to global warming.

2) The recent wildfires are by no means unprecedented and have been less destructive than the 2007 wildfires

The favourite quote presented by the media regarding the 2021 fires is that “we have never seen anything like it”. For example, there is this from Nikos Hardalias, Greece’s civil protection chief:

“Over the past few days, we have been facing a situation without precedent in our country, in the intensity and wide distribution of the wildfires, and the new outbreaks all over [Greece]”

People have short memories. Admittedly, it is early days but the forest fires of 1998 and 2007 were actually much more destructive and resulted in a much greater loss of life than the 2021 fires. Regarding the 2007 fires:

“The estimation for the cost of the damages for the 500,000 people affected was close to 3 billion euros according to European sources (4), while other moderate estimations have found it to be close to 2.2 billion US dollars (5). During the 2007 summer period, 68 people were killed, while another 2,094 people were injured (6). More than 100 villages and settlements were damaged; the burned forest and agricultural land constitutes about 2 % (190,836 ha) of the total area of Greece (7,8).”

It is also worth pointing out that the main reason for this particularly extensive set of forest fires was an over-accumulation of combustible material:

“The large burnt areas of 2007 fires season in Peloponnese Peninsula appear to be more sensitive to fuel availability and vegetation density than to vegetation dryness (9).”

It remains to be seen what role this has played in the 2021 fires.

3) The recent trend regarding Mediterranean wildfires is not that of an uninterrupted rise

Whilst it is true that the period 1900-2010 has seen a gradual increase in the numbers and extent of forest fires, the trend has been by no means straightforward as patterns of drought and fuel availability have taken their effect. This is not just true for Greece but for the Mediterranean in general. For example:

“A study on the Mediterranean region on fire trends in Portugal, Spain, southern France, Italy, and Greece in the period 1985-2011 revealed a general decreasing trend of the total annual burned area in all countries, with the exception of Portugal (10).”

4) Rural depopulation of northern mountain areas has been a key factor in recent wildfires

I have already mentioned the relevance of surface burning material to the 1998 and 2007 fires. This is a recurrent factor, however, and it is largely determined by human behaviour. With regard to the 1998 and 2007 fires, the analysis states:

“These fires most likely have had more surface burning fuel to propagate compared with those in previous decades because of rural depopulation in northern mountains of the Mediterranean, thus resulting in (a) reduced harvesting of biomass and (b) longer periods of fire exclusion (during which burning fuel accumulated) because of lower human activity (12).”

The analysis warns of worse to come if the current socioeconomic trend continues:

“Mediterranean mountainous areas may face a very large threat from wildfires in the twenty-first century, if socioeconomic changes leading to land abandonment and thus burning fuel accumulation are combined with the drought intensification projected for the region under global warming (4).”

5) The fire risk season can be expected to lengthen in most (but not all) Mediterranean countries, but the removal of accumulated dead biomass will mitigate the risk significantly

The future trend of forest fires in the Mediterranean is expected to be of an increase, resulting from a lengthening burn season:

“Forest fire danger, length of the fire season, and fire frequency and severity are very likely to increase in the Mediterranean (13), and will lead to increased dominance of shrubs over trees (14).”

But not for everyone:

The islands of Crete, Sardinia, Sicily (southernmost Italy too), Peloponnese, and Cyprus see no increase or decrease. Cyprus may even see a small decrease every month.

However, trying to reduce the lengthening of the fire season by cutting carbon dioxide emissions is not a cost-effective risk reduction strategy. The key to controlling the risk lies in adequate risk assessment tools, effective forestry management and keeping on top of the accumulation of surface burn material:

“Developing fire risk assessment tools that enable long-term fire danger prognosis (15) and battling the accumulation of burning fuel should be a top priority to reduce fire spread, especially if rural depopulation further continues in northern mountains of the Mediterranean (14).”

“Thinning and pruning may significantly reduce the risk of developing active and passive crown fires, giving the opportunity for successful countering of a possible fire from ground and air forces, since the fireline intensity of the front is significantly reduced, as a result of the fire’s confinement to the surface.”

Unfortunately, a major tool in the forest fire fighter’s armory is not available to the Greek authorities:

“Controlled or prescribed burning as a means to reduce surface fuel is not allowed under Greek legislation (7).”

Perhaps this last point should have been made more of by the media.

Conclusion

I have not written the above in order to dismiss the importance of the 2021 Greek wildfires, nor to deny that climate change will play a role in the outbreak of future forest fires. However, as is always the case, the reality on the ground is far more complicated than one might think given the shrill remonstrations made by those who demand an urgent transition to net zero carbon emissions. Risk may be reduced in a number of ways and the determination of the most cost-effective risk management strategy requires a full understanding of the factors leading to previous wildfire events and any underlying trends. Putting it all down to rising temperatures that can only be mitigated by reductions in carbon dioxide emission is both simplistic and misleading. I’m guessing, however, that will not be the message delivered by the IPCC’s AR6 executive summary.

References:

1. Dimitrakopoulos et al. (2011)

2. Camia and Amatulli (2009); Hoinka et al. (2009); Costa et al. (2011); Koutsias et al. (2012), all in: IPCC (2014)

3. Xystrakis et al. (2014)

4. Davidson (2007), in: Mitsakis et al. (2014)

5. Statheropoulos (2008), in: Mitsakis et al. (2014)

6. USAID (2007), in: Mitsakis et al. (2014)

7. Xanthopoulos et al. (2006), in: Zagas et al. (2013)

8. Koutsias et al. (2012), in: Xystrakis et al. (2014)

9. Gouveia et al. (2016)

10. Turco et al. (2016), in: Silva et al. (2019)

11. Christopoulou et al. (2013), in: Sarris et al. (2014)

12. Sarris et al. (2014)

13. Santos et al. (2002); Pausas (2004); Moreno (2005); Pereira et al. (2005); Moriondo et al. (2006), all in: Alcamo et al. (2007)

14. Mouillot et al. (2002), in: Alcamo et al. (2007)

15. Sarris and Koutsias (2014), in: Sarris et al. (2014)

130 Comments

  1. John, thanks for that thoughtful and sensitive piece.

    I am sure that nobody here will downplay the seriousness of the fires. However, I had suspected that the hysterical media reporting lacked both context and serious analysis. Thank you for supplying both.

    When the history of climate alarmism comes to be written, I think one of the most serious charges to be made against those in charge of policy (and those agitating for GHG reduction policies) will be the extent to which they ignored alternative sources/causes of problems, and failed to take serious steps towards adaptation. Time and again, it seems to be mitigation or bust, and never mind the consequences.

    Like you, sadly, I hold out little hope for any serious or thoughtful consideration of those issues when we are due to be met with the shrill Cassandras in the media and among the usual suspects, when tomorrow’s great press release takes place.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Surely another major factor controlling the severity of new wildfires is the extent and the timing of previous wildfires. Areas recently burnt cannot burn again until regenerated. This of course is another aspect of fuel availability, but clearly indicates that we should not expect an uninterrupted increase in wildfires.

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  3. Alan,

    >”Areas recently burnt cannot burn again until regenerated”

    Indeed. I guess that is the implication of “longer periods of fire exclusion (during which burning fuel accumulated)”.

    But it isn’t just about the harvesting of combustible biomass, it is also a question of what replaces it. A couple of relevant points also made in the ClimateChangePost analysis are:

    “In addition, forest fires are expected to encourage the spread of invasive species which in turn, have been shown to fuel more frequent and more intense forest fires.”

    But then, if broadleaf species move in:

    “…the progressive enrichment with broadleaf species might increase the moisture content in these positions and further reduce the risk of a forest fire spreading.”

    It is also worth mentioning that drought does not straightforwardly increase the risk of fire. It can also reduce it in the longer term by reducing combustible biomass:

    “…the frequency and intensity of fires in subtropical forests will eventually decrease after an initial phase of increase once rainfall has decreased so much that less grass fuel is available to support fires.”

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  4. Today the BBC is reporting that 56,000 hectares have been burnt in this year’s wildfires. That’s an impressive figure but still a good deal short of the 191,000 burnt in 2007. Unprecedented is still a word to be kept in reserve. Watch this space.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I don’t think climate change has a role here. Summer drought is the norm for the garrigue/maquis/chaparral shrubby community that you get in these areas, without which they would not exist. Photos appear to show crown fires in trees rather than shrubland burning but there is an obvious contribution of understorey biomass/necromass to fire propagation likelihood. (In fact one of the references given mentioned that a particular fire spread from shrubland into Aleppo pine forest (I seem to remember)).

    Even if you might suppose that climate change increases the chance of ignition, then you still don’t get anywhere. Why? Because this habitat always burns in the end. If a drier climate made it burn every 4 years instead of every 6, then yes you’d have a larger area burnt per year, but it would be burnt with less intensity – particularly if a prolonged drought season meant that biomass accumulated more slowly over time (think how slowly biomass accumulates in a desert; does it burn?).

    Now, it may be that if you could keep fire away from this type of habitat long enough, you’d end up with a forest of broadleaf trees as mentioned above by John. These cast more shade, so that the type of shrubs that burn easily are in the end outcompeted by shade-tolerant species (that are less tolerant of incredibly hot days with direct sunlight), so lowering fire risk. But that might take a hundred years.

    Final points: 1) were these fires started naturally, i.e. by dry lightning? and 2) wildfires don’t matter unless they affect places where people live. The more people who move into the “Wildland-Urban Interface” the more trouble we will have, because we will have more arson and accidental fires, and we will be forced to constantly put fires out because of the threat they hold, thus increasing standing fuel, and making it harder to put them out next time, and making human loss more likely next time too.

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  6. Jit,

    Thanks for your contribution. Some very interesting and valid arguments made there. However, I have a question. The analysis claims that both the frequency and burn areas of forest fires has increased over the 1900-2010 period (albeit unsteadily). If this is true, how do you account for that, if it isn’t due to a steady increase in the fire risk season?

    The depopulation of the northern mountain areas was an interesting point made by the analysis, I thought. It is fair to say that human activity is a major factor in the frequency of fires, and yet inactivity is what leads to more intense fires when they eventually happen. As you suggest, there is an inevitability to the fires and all that may be at stake is the pattern of occurrence and severity. Whatever the case, the explanation for any particular trend or fluctuation has to be more complex than the media and certain climate scientists are making out.

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  7. According to this article,
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/08/how-akp-cronyism-let-turkeys-forest-fires-get-out-of-control.html#more
    the forest fires in Turkey have nothing to do with global warming, and everything to do with Erdogan’s vendetta against the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK) set up by during the post-Ottoman revolution by the secular leader Kamal Ataturk and reportedly too close to the secular opposition parties. Following “reorganisation” and the resignation of experts, the THK lost its firefighting contract with the Forestry Ministry and was replaced by a company with no specialist Canadair firefighting planes, but only inefficient helicopters.

    I’ve no idea whether it’s true or not, but the sources are obviously Turkish. It’s the sort of “not a lot of people know that” story which any serious newspaper would have loved once upon a time.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. I really feel for the many bone-dry-vegetation areas planetwide uncontrollably burning. As a lifelong resident of southwestern B.C., the unprecedented heatwave here in late June, described by meteorologists as more of a ‘stalling heat dome’, left me feeling I could never again complain about the weather being too cold.

    Neo-liberals and conservatives are overly preoccupied with vociferously criticizing one another for their politics and beliefs thus diverting attention away from the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. (Although, it seems to be conservatives who don’t mind polluting the planet most liberally.)

    But there’s still some hope, mostly due to environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those who are approaching/reaching voting age. In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying and making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.

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  9. For two years I lived in Contra Costa County, just inland of the Berkley Hills in The Bay Area of California. Our hilltops became golden in the dry summers and a serious fire risk. Each property had a bit of hillside, and our property deeds stated that we were responsible for reducing the fire hazard by cutting and removing the bone dry tall grass every year. So I purchased a fossil fuel powered monster whipper-shipper and climbed to the peaks of my domain there to remove over several weekends what seemed to be several tons of necromass (what an evocative word; I had quite a few more words for the stuff before I had finished). I was much less enthusiastic the following year, because I found few of my neighbours had removed any of their hilltop vegetation. Thus we were still at risk.

    I never worked it out, but Jit must be correct. Eventually (unless removed) it must burn. Some, of course gets eaten.
    So I never directly experienced a wildfire in California, although elsewhere in the County, small fires did occur.

    Oddly the only fire that could have burnt us out occurred in Norfolk. We lived in a converted barn complex. One year my immediate neighbour learned to read his deeds. A deliberate fire in a field of stubble got out of control and my neighbour’s immaculate garden was trashed by several rampaging fire trucks on their way to the fire – they had a right of way which explained an oddly-placed gate that my neighbour had permanently closed. The fire took more than a day to put out and set off small satellite fires, all illustrating the “fact” that climate chaos could hit Norfolk badly, unfortunately not converting it into a Greek paradise on the way.

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  10. It is certainly possible that frequency and area burnt has gone up. One thing I did not mention is that recovery after a severe fire might be slower because the intense heat penetrates the ground and kills even the fire-adapted oily shrubs. Moderate or quickly-moving fires only remove the above-ground material and the shrubs reshoot from the base quite quickly.

    In Britain on the moors where prescribed burning is the order of the day, this results in a kind of hamster wheel of fire. Regularly-burnt areas regenerate their heather fast and soon become dangerous, thus necessitating another burn, which causes rapid regeneration, etc.

    Ecologists often argue for removal of burning but have to admit that there would be an increased risk of wildfire year on year. Eventually trees would outcompete the heather and the wildfire risk would shrink. But you have to reach that stage.

    No easy answers but I wonder whether there are fewer goats around in Greece than in former times. It sounds dumb and inconsequential but grazing at certain times of the year might well ameliorate the risk and reduce the intensity of fire.

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  11. Alan, I think stubble burning is no longer permitted. I also saw a stubble fire get out of hand once, as a teenager. The field whose fire got out of hand is now a housing estate.

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  12. With all this emphasis on wildfires, especially in areas of summer drought, the fact that fires are natural events and are curtailed/delayed by human intervention (making them more severe) is being ignored. Once I flew from Darwin to Perth overnight. Looking down we saw lines of fire stretching from horizon to horizon. Not just one, but a succession of them, for hundreds and hundreds of miles. That was in 1981, but I can still picture it. Apparently if you flew by day, the fires were all but invisible.

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  13. repeat post by me from NALOPNT –

    I notice the BEEB are covering the fires in Greece as another “extreme climate event”

    but I remember this happening almost every year (I think) & the BEEB covering it !!!

    The only quick link I found for fire season in Greece from 2000 – http://www.fao.org/3/ad653e/ad653e64.htm

    Last para – “Of course, these changes in the Forest Service will require additional funding compared to the current low level,
    but in the long term will reduce damage and the cost of firefighting .
    Otherwise, given the natural flammability of Greek forests, the problem may become worse in spite of spending more money in the battle against forest fires.”

    PS – When the MSM report the fires they tag on at the end
    “worst heatwave for 30 yrs”
    .. almost as an afterthought/means nothing !!!

    (Comment edited on request by SG)

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Just read the latest from the BBC. The apology from the prime minister that blames the “supernatural forces” of the “climate crisis” I’ll leave to others. I was struck by the ending:

    Three people have been killed by the blazes, including a volunteer firefighter hit by a falling pylon, and an industrialist who was found unconscious at a factory near Athens last week. A third man was killed on Monday when his bulldozer fell into a cliff during a fire.

    Several others have been taken to hospital after suffering from smoke inhalation and burns.

    …

    But the president of Evia’s village of Monokaria, Klelia Dimitraki, said she was concerned the area would never recover.

    “Ιt is a holocaust. All the villages, the whole area is finished, finished,” she said.

    “All we are saying today, is that we are fortunate to be alive.”

    Three people killed and the term holocaust. As a climate ‘denier’ that really got to me.

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  15. Richard,

    Since ‘holocaust’ is by definition destruction by fire, I suppose we have to grant the use of such language. We should just be grateful that no one has yet thought to label those of us who take the time to look at the statistics as holocaust deniers.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. John: I’m assuming Klelia Dimitraki was speaking in Greek with the BBC doing the translation and understanding the allusions. It’s black humour on my part but three really isn’t that many, even if you take the lives the Shoah put paid to just from Greece. And three will hardly make a bump in Lomborg’s next ten-year running average:

    Let’s get the analogies in the right ball park numerically, shall we?

    James Smith meanwhile I’ve heard say that genocide has killed far more, ahead of their time, than any other cause since 1900. I’ve been meaning to email him about that.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. DFHunter,

    Thank you very much for the link. That Xanthopoulos paper is a real corker. Where do I start? Let’s go with:

    a) It seems from the data that the 1998 outbreak mentioned in the ClimateChangePost analysis was only the start of a three year season, each year of which far exceeded the current destruction figures for 2021. It just re-emphasises how much one cannot trust the present-day rhetoric, even from supposedly reliable sources such as Greece’s civil protection chief.

    b) Wow, all that data and analysis regarding causation and not one mention of climate change? How refreshing. Instead, there is a sober summary of what weather one should always expect in Greece. In particular, “In the summer, maximum temperatures occasionally reach 42-45oC at various inland locations.” Do they really?

    c) Then there is man’s influence, such as: “The influence of man, active in the area for more than three thousand years, is also reflected in the distribution and usually degraded condition of the forests.” I presume they are not referring here to three thousand years of global warming. No, that would have to be a modern-day trend. Does it get a mention, however?

    “The increase in the number of fires in the 1980s can be attributed to many factors, one of which is a more thorough effort to record forest fires. However, a large part of this increase is due to increased activity of people in or near the forests and forested lands. New roads and an ever-increasing number of private cars offered easier access to forests. The number of people leaving the cities in the summer, seeking cooler places along the coastline and in the mountain villages for their vacation, has gradually increased, increasing the probability of accidental fires. The same is true for international tourists who visit Greece every summer at the peak of the fire season. Most importantly, a trend that started in the late 1970s of building secondary summer housing along the coasts, accelerated in the 1980s. These housing areas were poorly planned, creating a troublesome urban/wildland interface and increasing the risk of wildfires. The activities of these people, starting with construction and continuing with their everyday activities (barbecues, burning debris, parking cars on cured grass, etc.) have very frequently resulted in accidental wildfires.”

    That would be a ‘no’ then.

    d) And to answer Jit’s question: “Grazing of sheep and goats, traditional in the country, in recent times has become one of the main causes of wildfires. Many areas are overgrazed. Shepherds react to the resulting reduction of feed for the animals by burning to stimulate new growth of shrubs and grasses.”

    e) And then there is the thorny subject of arson. We all know this is fake news promulgated by deniers and their bots, don’t we?

    “Another factor that led to increased forest arson in the 1980s and 1990s is a spin-off of the demand for land to build secondary summer housing and to develop tourist accommodations…”

    Yes folks, arson can trend, didn’t you know? And I don’t mean just on twitter.

    And the list of problems just goes on and on. Degradation of fire services, depopulation of mountainous areas, the expansion of urban/wildland interface areas, etc. Maybe it would just be better if you were to read the paper yourself. The bottom line is this: Yes, an extended fire season caused by climate change may be a factor in the increased numbers and severity of forest fires in Greece, but there are so many other factors that can explain the numbers, all of which are a much stronger influence on them. So much so that, when it comes down to a serious analysis of the situation on the ground, climate change doesn’t even warrant a mention. Where’s a BBC journalist when you need one?

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Dougie/John

    That article offers some much-needed perspective. If only someone in the media would realise that there is this thing called the internet where you can find out about things that happened more than a week ago.

    Interesting points:

    1. the human-caused fires outnumber the natural fires by more than 10:1 (although there are plenty more without an attributed cause, in text these are described as likely arson). Natural causes (lightning) are responsible for <3%.

    In terms of importance, arson fires for land use change, fires from burning garbage dumps and power line fires are considered to be the worst since they usually occur on days with high wind. Shepherd fires are also a problem, both due to the cost of fighting them and to the fact that even when firefighting efforts are successful the shepherds merely wait for more difficult conditions and try again.

    2. fires occur in every month but as might be expected, July-August-September are the worst months.

    3. the number of plane crashes associated with wildfire fighting is extraordinary.

    In the past, resin collectors contributed to safer forests (mainly those of Pinus halepensis and Pinus brutia) by maintaining forest trails for their need to move from tree to tree and by managing the forest, selectively removing older trees that were useless to them in order to favour regeneration. Furthermore, since the forests were their field of production and the storage area of their product, they exercised maximum fire prevention care and immediately suppressed any fire. Unfortunately, by the end of the 1970s this profession started to slowly die out as the demand for resin decreased, income dropped, and no subsidies were provided by Greek or European Union policies.

    I think I know how to help, or at least make myself feel good about doing nothing to help. Drink more retsina. (Although after one particular incident, I vowed never again.)

    Forest flammability is generally high. The most flammable types are the pine forests (Pinus halepensis, Pinus brutia) and the shrublands at the lower elevations, by the sea, in the middle and southern part of the country. This vegetation is also adapted to fire either through cone serotiny (pines) or re-sprouting (shrubs).

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  19. Oh, and it’s interesting that the effects of goats are seemingly the opposite to what I expected. My theory was that spring grazing would lead to less dry vegetation in the summer. But according to the article, the shepherds burn off the dead stuff to stimulate a nice green “bite”. Also mentioned is the observation that such fires lead to soil erosion, which presumably favours drought-tolerant flammable species. Oh well.

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  20. Jit: To be fair, that’s not the goats but the goatherds. Man-made yes (as part of a highly complex multivariate situation), concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere nothing to do with it. But it sounds like a fascinating doc.

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  21. Richard,

    >”But it sounds like a fascinating doc.”

    It most certainly is, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who is spouting the mantra regarding climate change and wildfires. For example, I caught the back end of a BBC 1 article this lunchtime, in which (judging by the accent) Californian wildfires were being discussed. I paraphrase, but the concluding statement made directly to camera was along the lines of, “You’re going to have to face it. These wildfires are caused by climate change and that is no longer deniable. Period”. To which I would say, “Just shut up and read this. Exclamation mark.”

    Incidentally, Xanthopoulos is one of the authors cited by the ClimateChangePost analysis, though, judging by the dates, the paper found by Dougie predates the one that they cite. Whatever the case, it provides detail that only serves to further emphasize the point of my own article – only when you look beyond the obvious do you start to understand.

    There’s a lot of willful ignorance out there at the moment.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. The BBC (inevitably) has an article about wild fires and climate change today. Its first heading is “Are wildfires getting worse?”, but when you click on the link, it turns into “Wildfires: How are they linked to climate change?”. It’s a “Reality Check” article:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58159451

    First, California:

    “The acres burned across the US in 2021 so far sit below the 10-year average, with some other states not being as badly hit as California.

    But experts are warning it is still very early, in what is looking like an exceptionally dry and long fire season.

    Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

    Dr Prichard says: “Extreme fire weather events including increased lightning and strong winds, are also becoming more common under climate change.””

    Next Turkey:

    “The wildfires in Turkey have been labelled ‘the worst in its history’ by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    More than 200 have affected western and southern Turkey, although the authorities say the majority of these are now contained.

    About 175,000 hectares have been burned so far this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

    That’s more than eight times the average for this time of year – measured between 2008 and 2020.”

    Greece:

    “Greece has also seen record-breaking wildfires – with 12 times as much land being burned than average.”

    Siberia:

    “The average burnt area in Siberia for the last decade (2011-2020) was more than double the previous one, according to data from the Sukachev Forest Institute.

    The Sakha Republic (or Yakutia) in the north-east has faced severe fires since mid-June. This type of high intensity fire emits more carbon dioxide.

    The volume of carbon released by fires in Sakha this year far exceeds recent years. However, some neighbouring regions haven’t endured such a bad season.”

    Brazilian Amazon:

    “So far in 2021, the area burned is less than last year, according to satellite data analysed by Dr Michelle Kalamandeen, a tropical ecologist.

    But the Cerrado, a vast grassland or savannah used to farm crops and cattle, has seen an increase in land affected by fires.

    In 2020, fires were particularly destructive at the southern edge of the Amazon, such as in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. Here the forest meets the more fire-prone savannah.

    Current conditions and the rain forecast suggest another drought, meaning “we could see large fire conflagrations again in this region”, says Kátia Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Geosciences at Arkansas University.

    In other sections of the rainforest in Brazil – and in Peru and Bolivia – a more “average” season is expected. Overall, forecasts suggest climate conditions will be less conducive to the type of severe fires seen in 2020.

    Human activities such as deforestation also pose a major fire risk.”

    I love that final sentence, added as though it’s almost an inconsequential afterthought. And the inevitable conclusion?

    “And alongside these human activities, the impact of climate change on the Amazon is significant, says Prof Fernandes.

    “We have seen evidence the dry season has increased in length, and severe droughts are occurring more frequently due to natural variability exacerbated by climate change.””

    How does one Fact Check the Fact Checkers? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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  23. “Algeria forest fires: Dozens killed in Kabylie region”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58165169

    “At least 25 Algerian soldiers and 17 civilians have been killed in wildfires to the east of the capital Algiers, the country’s prime minister has said.

    Several more soldiers were injured fighting the fires, in the forested Kabylie region.

    Temperatures of up to 46C were forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

    Fires have caused devastation in several Mediterranean countries in recent days, including Turkey, Greece, Lebanon and Cyprus.

    Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

    The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

    More than 100 fires have been reported across 17 Algerian provinces, the country’s official news agency APS said on Tuesday evening.”

    Far from the headline, deep in the article, is this:

    “Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud said that about 50 of the blazes were “of criminal origin”.”

    But that’s irrelevant, obviously. Read on!

    “Earlier this week, a major UN scientific report found that human activity was changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways.

    The landmark study warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade, but scientists say a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast.”

    It’s a strange world when RT might offer more balance than the BBC:

    “Algerian officials launch probe to find arsonists behind 50 ‘horror’ fires as firefighters battle blazes”

    https://www.rt.com/news/531671-algerian-government-arsonists-deadly-fire/

    “Algeria’s government has announced an investigation to identify the “criminal hands” responsible for 50 “horror” fires that destroyed swathes of forest to the east of the country’s capital city and killed more than 20 people.

    Speaking on Tuesday, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud declared that the government would launch an inquiry to find the “criminal hands” who are “behind the simultaneous outbreak of about 50 fires across several localities of the province.””

    Yes, the article mentions other blazes around the world, but not a mention of climate change! Compare and contrast….

    Like

  24. Mark,

    This isn’t a question of whether or not climate change has influenced the frequency and severity of forest fires. It is a question of the extent to which observed trends can be explained by climatic changes, given that there are several other factors that can be expected to reproduce a similar trend. It is a classic question of attribution and, as such, it requires being able to answer counterfactual questions. In this instance, the key question is: If there had been no increase in global temperatures over the period, would we still have seen an increase in frequency and severity of forest fires and, if so, to what extent? Unfortunately, no one in the climate science community appears to be in the least bit interested in providing answers to that question. This is part of the willful ignorance I referred to earlier. The media reports you quote are just icing on the cake.

    As a case in point, let us talk more about the situation in Algeria. If you search beyond the online media hype you will find this paper on the internet: “Wildfire Management Policies in Algeria: Present and Future Needs”

    *ttps://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr245/psw_gtr245_382.pdf

    It is a paper that does not deny the relevance of climatic change to Algeria’s wildfire problem, but the following statements are worthy of note:

    “As in the entire Mediterranean basin, forest fires in Algeria are mostly human-caused, whether by negligence or voluntary.”

    “…for the 1985 to 2010 time series, for which we have almost complete information, the fire cause cannot be identified in 80% of the cases…In Algeria, it is commonly accepted that at least half of the fires attributed to unknown causes are either arson or security fires, which are purposely set by the Algerian Army as a counter terrorism measure; making it a rather difficult topic to address.”

    So, Algeria has a major, major problem with arson. It turns out that army personnel are not just heroically losing their lives fighting fires, they are also the ones deliberately starting them. Not a detail that appears in your average BBC coverage.

    Further down, there is:

    “…the number of fires has significantly increased in the last two decades. In contrast, area burnt has shown some stabilization. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the availability and allocation of firefighting resources for surveillance and suppression actions.”

    The point here is that little progress has been made in reducing the number of outbreaks (hard to do when the army is responsible for them) but fires are being kept under better control because of investments in fire detection and firefighting equipment and personnel.

    So I return to the question of causal analysis and the importance of counterfactual questioning. With such major influencing factors to consider, how can one possibly be able to discern the climatic influence? For example, if the army were to stop their ‘security’ practices, or the Algerian authorities had not invested in fire management, what would the resulting picture look like? And even if we were able to discern the climatic influence, how much of an increased risk will we be talking about, given that Algeria has always had a climate and flora that is perfect for forest fires? Surely the law of diminishing returns would operate here.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. Mark,

    I’ve just read the BBC Reality Check item for myself, and I must say that, for a report that claims to be presenting the case for attributing wildfires to climate change, it contains very little that goes anywhere near doing so in anything like a scientific manner. All I could find was:

    “Parts of the western US have seen record-breaking temperatures this year, which – along with severe drought conditions – have triggered a series of major wildfires.”

    A bold statement here that heat and drought ‘trigger’ wildfires rather than merely increase the risk. No mention at all, of course, of the actual triggers. But then there is:

    “Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.”

    More incorrect use of terminology here. Hot dry weather doesn’t fuel anything. Combustible material is the fuel. No mention at all, of course, about the non-climatic factors that affect fuel availability. Enter Dr Prichard:

    “Dr Prichard says: ‘Extreme fire weather events including increased lightning and strong winds, are also becoming more common under climate change’.”

    What Dr Prichard forgets to say is that lightning is only a relatively minor trigger for forest fires compared to human activity. But then there is Dr Yusuf Serengil:

    “Dr Yusuf Serengil, from the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Istanbul, says: ‘It’s a very bad year all over the Mediterranean region. We believe that this is caused by an above-average hot July in the region’.”

    Beware anyone who talks of a single cause for such a complex issue, particularly when expressed as a belief. Where’s the science? As for Greece:

    “Greece has also seen record-breaking wildfires – with 12 times as much land being burned than average.”

    More than the average what? Bear? Speaking of bears:

    “A study found Siberia’s record breaking heatwave in 2020 was impossible without climate change.”

    Indeed, only a less intense heatwave would have been possible. However, the key question is whether or not the wildfires would have still been possible with this less intense heatwave. This is another classic attempt to construct a causal argument based on necessity alone whilst completely ignoring matters of sufficiency.

    Finally, and only for Brazil, we at last get a mention of the relevance of human activities:

    “And alongside these human activities, the impact of climate change on the Amazon is significant, says Prof Fernandes.”

    Not good enough. Tell us what the relative attribution is Prof Fernandes. But you can’t, can you?

    In summary, there is no recognition in the BBC’s article of the many factors that have to be carefully analysed before drawing any conclusions. Also, there is not a single reference here to an attribution study that discerns and quantifies the relative causal influences. And that, of course, is because no one has ever attempted one. Until then, we have to put up with arm-waving and vague, unquantified references to what is actually a favoured subset of risk factors.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. I’ve just finished watching the evening news on BBC, where George Alagiah announced that ‘hundreds of thousands of hectares’ have now been destroyed in the Greece forest fires.

    Blimey, I thought. That’s shot up from the 50,000 of only a few days ago. Even the devastating fires of 2007 only managed 190,000 – and that was 2% of the area of Greece! These fires are now truly apocalyptic if they are already running to ‘hundreds of thousands’. So I searched on the internet to find out just how many hundreds we are now talking about. Here’s your answer:

    Very nearly 1.

    https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210811-almost-100-000-hectares-of-forest-burned-in-greek-fires

    That’s numberwang!

    Liked by 1 person

  27. gotta love BCC “numberwang” – I sometimes do the same with my pension pot, until the fact checker (the wife) brings me back down to earth.

    Like

  28. There are a number of ‘communications’ outfits out there purporting to provide assistance to those who need an update on the latest in climate change science. One of those is Climate Communications, who, amongst other things, have developed a number of fact sheets for journalists to consult. So I looked up their fact sheet on wildfires and climate change.

    https://www.sciline.org/climate/wildfires/

    It lists a number of ‘Facts for any story’. I won’t give a blow-by-blow appraisal of their ‘facts’ but I will pass comment on their final point. Under the heading of ‘Pitfalls to Avoid’, they have the following warning for journalists:

    “Many factors contribute to wildfire occurrences, and human activities are by far the leading source of wildfire ignitions even as climate change has contributed significantly to wildfire size and intensity. (From 1992 to 2012 in the United States, humans ignited 84 percent of wildfires.) Instead of asking whether climate change “caused” a wildfire, it’s better to ask:

    • How is climate change influencing the likelihood of wildfires such as these?
    • To what extent was this wildfire larger and/or more intense because of climate change?
    • How has climate change made the U.S. more vulnerable to large fires like this one?”

    Okay, but there is a far more important pitfall to avoid, and one that the scientists at Climate Communication have signally failed to avoid. The better questions to ask are actually:

    • How are factors other than climate change influencing the likelihood of wildfires such as these?
    • To what extent was this wildfire larger and/or more intense because of factors other than climate change?
    • How have factors other than climate change made the U.S. more vulnerable to large fires like this one?

    By including the above questions one can avoid the cognitive bias known as the Focussing Effect. With advice such as that provided by Climate Communication it is no wonder our journalists are sleeping on the job!

    Liked by 1 person

  29. “Greece plans to name heatwaves in the same way as storms
    Personalising the ‘silent killer’ hot spells could raise awareness in time to avert loss of life and property, say scientists”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/21/greece-plans-to-name-heatwaves-in-the-same-way-as-storms

    “Spurred on by this summer’s record temperatures, Greek scientists have begun discussing the need to name and rank heatwaves, better known for their invisibility, before rampant wildfires made the realities of the climate crisis increasingly stark.”

    It strikes me that it’s simply another way of creating the impression that things are worse than they are, as with the naming of storms in western Europe, some of which would barely have caused a raised eyebrow in the past. The Met Office’s increasing use of weather warnings seems to be part of the same strategy.

    Yesterday, when I looked at the weather forecast for today (online, via the BBC website) I saw an exclamation mark, indicative of a weather warning. Oh dear, I thought, that doesn’t look good. And yet, the forecast was for light rain at first, turning dry with fluffy white cloud, light winds and a maximum temperature of 19C. Why the exclamation mark? It’s disappeared on this morning’s forecast for the rest of the day, by the way.

    Like

  30. The BBC has returned to the fray to publish the following piece on the Algerian forest fires:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-58269789

    It’s a piece that typifies how the BBC goes about dealing with the thorny issue of causation, inevitably concluding that climate change is the real issue. So we have this:

    “Both Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that the origin of the forest fires were criminal, while failing to produce concrete evidence for the claims.They blamed separatist groups fighting for self-determination in the Kabyle region around Tizi Ouzou, and also said it would ‘review’ diplomatic relations with Morocco, which it accuses of backing the groups.”

    The BBC journalist seems pleased that ‘concrete evidence’ was not forthcoming but perhaps had he done his job properly he might have discerned for himself the reason for this. I’m no journalist, but it took me very little time to unearth the fact that academics who study the history of Algeria’s forest fires have compiled statistics on causation. According to General Technical Report PSW-GTR-245 of the Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy, lack of concrete evidence is not really the issue. Just to remind you:

    “…for the 1985 to 2010 time series, for which we have almost complete information, the fire cause cannot be identified in 80% of the cases…In Algeria, it is commonly accepted that at least half of the fires attributed to unknown causes are either arson or security fires, which are purposely set by the Algerian Army as a counter terrorism measure; making it a rather difficult topic to address.”

    Having missed the point regarding evidence, the BBC journalist continues by claiming irrelevance:

    “However, such accusations ignore the fact that countries around the Mediterranean have also struggled with forest fires in recent weeks, including Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France. Climate change in the region is likely to be causing an increase in the conditions in which wildfires occur.”

    Well, yes it is, and the fires can’t all be blamed on fighting separatist groups, but once again the point is missed. There are still many common factors that have contributed to the scale of these fires, and the heatwave is only one of them.

    Forlornly, the BBC reporter finally states”

    “Unfortunately, global warming is not yet a significant part of Algerian public discourse.”

    Well maybe if the BBC got off its fat arse and did some proper journalism for once, it might understand why there are very good reasons for this.

    Liked by 1 person

  31. “The climate science behind wildfires: why are they getting worse? – video explainer”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/aug/20/the-climate-science-behind-wildfires-why-are-they-getting-worse-video-explainer

    “We are in an emergency. Wildfires are raging across the world as scorching temperatures and dry conditions fuel the blazes that have cost lives and destroyed livelihoods.

    The combination of extreme heat, changes in our ecosystem and prolonged drought have in many regions led to the worst fires in almost a decade, and come after the IPCC handed down a damning landmark report on the climate crisis.

    But technically, there are fewer wildfires than in the past – the problem now is that they are worse than ever and we are running out of time to act, as the Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, explains”

    Interesting final paragraph. There’s a 4 minutes 34 seconds video, which looks like the usual propaganda, though I do notice that they confirm in the video that there are fewer fires in the past. If you can’t stand to listen to it, you can mute it and watch with sub-titles.

    Like

  32. Mark,

    I’ve looked at the video and I have to say that it is pretty dumb. But firstly, I like his use of the word ‘technically’. It is a word that is usually employed to downplay significance. In this instance, presumably, wildfires are only technically fewer in the rather limited sense that their numbers are lower.

    In fact, his analysis is twee at best. He seems to be putting down the increase in severity to there being more monoculture nowadays (plantations). How this effect can be separated from the effects of climate change is left as an open question, other than he introduces a somewhat tenuous concept of the feedback loop between fires and climate. Honestly, that is four and a half minutes I’ll never get back.

    Like

  33. An interesting concept: watching eco-lunacy with the sound off and subtitles might be more acceptable to sceptics. I suppose if the subtitles get too much you can always shut your eyes.

    Like

  34. Alan,

    If you turn the sound down you don’t get to hear the professorial tones to go with the professorial beard. Actually, Jonathan Watts’ beard is as qualified to talk about climate science as he is, since his qualifications seem to amount to little more than a degree in Oriental and African Studies. Even so, his journalistic prowess gives him just enough understanding to follow all of the highly technical stuff (like lower numbers implying fewer fires) whilst knowing just how much he needs to dumb it all down for our benefit. The truth is that his presentation was half-baked, self-contradictory and mired in cognitive dissonance. He was so desperate to shoehorn in the dreaded feedback loop and to implicate man’s impact on biodiversity that he forgot to think about logical consistency.

    Like

  35. John, apologies for depriving you of that 4 minutes 30 seconds. Still, I think we need to be aware of what’s going on in the world of climate alarmism.

    Alan, it might be worth watching with the sound muted and your eyes shut….

    Like

  36. “Greece’s deadly wildfires were sparked by 30 years of political failure
    Yanis Varoufakis
    The climate emergency and state neglect caused this disaster”

    Of course, he mentions climate change (it’s de rigeur, after all) but there’s also a lot of stuff like this:

    “To grasp why this is happening, we need to understand the trajectory of urban and rural development in Greece. War and poverty caused a mass exodus from the countryside that began in the late 1940s. Villagers who did not migrate to countries such as Germany, Canada and Australia descended upon Athens. Combined with lax urban planning, this surge of humanity quickly turned the Greater Athens area into a concrete jungle. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, the same people dreamed of a partial return to the countryside, of a summer home in the shade of some pine trees, close to Athens and, preferably, in some proximity to the sea.

    To these petty-bourgeois dwellings, which by the 1980s were strewn all over Attica, the mid-1990s added middle-class suburbia. Villas and shopping malls gradually invaded inland wooded areas bordering Athens, at a speed that reflected the economic growth fuelled with money borrowed from EU banks or provided via EU structural funding.

    It is as if we were looking for trouble. Fire is a natural ally of Mediterranean pine forests. It helps clear the ground of old trees and allows young ones to prosper. By helping themselves to the wood daily and by employing tactical burning every spring, villagers once prevented these fires from running amok. Alas, not only did circumstances force the villagers to abandon the forests but, when they and their descendants returned as atomised urbanites to build their summer homes inside the untended forests, they did so bearing none of the traditional communal knowledge or practices.”

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Mark,

    That piece by Yanis Varoufakis echoes what Xanthopoulos said in his paper and what was said in the ClimateChangePost analysis regarding rural depopulation of northern mountain areas. It appears to be a well-documented issue, though clearly not well-documented enough to appear on the MSM radar.

    Like

  38. Mark do you have some high-falluting device (or have had mystical eastern training) that allows you to watch with your eyes shut? I suspect some of my students in the past had this ability.

    Like

  39. Alan,

    If you are to conquer climate change, grasshopper, you must learn to see without looking, hear without listening and know without thinking.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. DFH
    “ If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else.
    It will spread into your work and into your life.
    There are no limits.
    There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. “

    Mighty saying of the great Bruce Lee

    Like

  43. OK, it’s California, not Greece, but I suspect some of the issues are the same.

    “‘It’s a reality’: Biden calls for urgency in California as climate crisis fuels wildfires
    President calls year-round fires an emergency country can no longer ignore as he advocates for rebuilding plan”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/13/california-wildfires-biden-trip-climate-crisis-links-extreme-weather

    “Joe Biden travelled to California on Monday to survey wildfire damage as the state battles a devastating fire season that is on track to outpace that of 2020, the state’s worst on record.

    The president is using the trip to highlight the connection between the climate crisis and the west’s increasingly extreme wildfires as he seeks to rally support for a $3.5tn spending plan Congress is debating.

    Biden pointed to wildfires burning through the west to argue for his plan, calling year-round fires and other extreme weather a climate crisis reality the nation can no longer ignore.”

    He ‘travelled’ to California, did he. On a magic carpet or in Air Force One? If the latter, there’s certainly an irony in a jet-setting President making a jet-setting trip to draw attention to climate change and the apparent need to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

    Like

  45. Mark,

    There is a quite comprehensive entry in Wikipedia on the subject of Californian wildfire history:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires

    In it you will read that:

    “During the 2020 wildfire season alone, over 8,100 fires contributed to the burning of nearly 4.5 million acres of land.”

    This would be quite alarming if one hadn’t just read:

    “Pre-1800, when the area was much more forested and the ecology much more resilient, 4.4 million acres (1.8 million hectares) of forest and shrubland burned annually.”

    As with all these wildfire news stories, the long-term wildfire history tends to be downplayed and the reality is that attributions to climate change are much more difficult than is made out. Besides which, in the case of California, one can read this (ref. Jin-Ho Yoon et al. 2015):

    “However, what is not yet fully understood is the extent to which the projected wetter climate in California towards the latter part of the 21st century (Neelin et al. 2013) could affect wildfire risk in the future.”

    What? Projected wetter climate? So that would mean that Biden is trying to make matters worse for California by stopping climate change.

    Doh!

    Liked by 1 person

  47. The Guardian is still at it:

    “‘It’s like a war’: Greece battles increase in summer wildfires
    Prevention and suppression are crucial as climate change creates stronger heatwaves, say experts”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/30/its-like-a-war-greece-battles-increase-in-summer-wildfires

    “Forest fires are an annual occurrence in the Mediterranean, but climate change has caused stronger heatwaves and a longer, more intense, annual fire season. On average, 80% of the burned area across Europe occurs in the Mediterranean region, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

    This summer was also one of the worst on record. Wildfires tore through the entire region, from Tunisia and Algeria in the south to Spain, Italy and Greece in the north. In southern Turkey and Greece, residents and tourists fled areas ablaze as authorities struggled to deploy firefighting planes to battle the worst affected areas. The fires caused at least 86 deaths, 69 of which occurred in Tunisia and Algeria.”

    But then, remarkably:

    “Two decades’ of data from the European Forest Fire Information Service (Effis), provides some grounds for hope. “We are seeing a decrease in the number of burnt areas, but that is because of an increase in firefighting units,” said Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz, a specialist in fire risk management and an Effis coordinator.”

    Liked by 1 person

  48. Mark,

    Yes, it’s the conflagration that just keeps on giving. The remarkable thing is that a decrease in the number of burnt areas is so readily associated with an increase in firefighting units, and yet the media find it so difficult to countenance the idea that an increase in burnt areas could be associated with a decrease in units. This is despite the fact that such a correlation has been observed in all cases.

    Liked by 3 people

  49. Unwittingly, I suspect, this piece in the Observer/Guardian, although it seeks to make a big thing about climate change causing wildfires, actually says many of the things that sceptics have been saying:

    “Current approach to wildfires risks lives and wastes money, say experts
    Researchers call for new firefighting techniques that focus on managing landscapes, as global heating sees increase in blazes”

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/oct/24/current-approach-to-wildfires-risks-lives-and-wastes-money-say-experts

    “A new approach is urgently needed to tackle global wildfires as current methods are no longer working, draining the public purse and placing lives at risk, according to experts….

    …Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London, said efforts to tackle wildfires wrongly focused on suppression techniques. Hundreds of firefighters spend weeks tackling blazes, with millions of pounds spent on equipment, including bulldozers, retardants, helicopters and airplanes.

    “Fighting a fire with hundreds of people and tankers is the last thing we should be doing. It’s a desperate attempt when everything else has failed,” he said….

    …But, Rein said, firefighting should be the final line of defence against wildfires: “They are the last layer that protects us from a catastrophe.” Dealing with the growing threat of wildfires involves prioritising fire prevention and landscape management.

    Not all wildfires are bad.

    “Fire is a natural process and many landscapes around the world need fire,” said Cathelijne Stoof, an assistant professor specialising in wildfires at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “Plants need fire to regenerate. Some need heat, some need smoke. A calm, mild fire can clear the forest understories underneath trees so when a big fire comes along, it doesn’t do as much damage to the ecosystem or people.”

    Prescribed burns, intentional off-season fires that burn leaves and old wood and create breaks in the forest, can mitigate risk.

    Stoof, along with Rein and Quinn-Davidson, has called for more funding for fire prevention and education into how to manage landscapes to prevent fire from getting out of control.

    Quinn-Davidson said that despite some progress, such as a bill in California to provide insurance for people wanting to do this work, more was needed.

    She said: “We need more people to make this work. We have a fraction of the people and resources we need to tackle this problem, not just for fighting fires but for doing all the work the rest of the year, such as prescribed burns and thinning [vegetation]. We need to hire and train more people, so we have a skilled workforce to do this work. That needs funding.””

    Like

  50. thanks for that Mark – notice it ends with –
    “We need to hire and train more people, so we have a skilled workforce to do this work. That needs funding”

    maybe wrong but I thought in the old days people/towns etc were capable of doing this (and did) until Environmental laws stopped them doing it ?

    the locals know the place best – as they have been saying this for years, but have to now “fund a skilled workforce” !!!

    Like

  52. There is an implied logic behind such articles: Why is the situation worse than it used to be? Answer, climate change. What can we do to regain the previous status quo? Improve the resources and processes required for fire prevention. In short, we were doing fine until climate change came along.

    There is no recognition that, actually, we were doing fine until we stopped doing what we used to do and changed our exposure to fire risk without doing anything about it. Climate change may have had an impact but it is layered upon a set of more fundamental and self-inflicted problems. Unpicking the causal effects requires that answers be given to questions regarding the counterfactual, e.g.:

    What if the Turkish authorities had not decommissioned the major part of their arial fire-fighting fleet?

    What if the Algerian army had not conducted a campaign of deliberate fire-starting to combat insurgent terrorism?

    What if the folk of California had not been allowed to build homes in areas of traditionally high fire risk?

    What if the Russians had not introduced a policy of only combatting fires once they started to encroach upon populated areas?

    What if the Greeks had not engaged in the systematic depopulation of the northern territories leading to dereliction of forestry fire management in that area?

    What if there were not a ban on preventative burning in most Mediterranean countries?

    What if arson wasn’t such a big problem as it is in countries such as Australia?

    And, finally, what if we had not emitted as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as we have?

    Liked by 2 people

  53. Well it seems that it is Colorado’s turn to carry the torch, as it were:

    “Colorado wildfires: Tens of thousands evacuated as blazes spread”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59834897

    I do not dispute that wildfires in Colorado have become an increasing problem since the latter half of the 20th century but, as is always the case, one has to be very careful before drawing conclusions regarding trends and causation, since urbanisation, forest management and other factors that determine fuel availability have to be considered:

    https://oceanblueproject.org/the-cause-and-effects-of-the-burning-colorado-wildfires/

    The BBC, however, has no doubt regarding causation – it’s a drought thing:

    “Colorado has been experiencing extreme droughts in recent years. Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.”

    This may be so, but a longer historical perspective may still be useful here. How about:

    “A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North America”

    https://www.pnas.org/content/107/50/21283

    “In particular, during the medieval period, ∼AD 900–1300, the Northern Hemisphere experienced temperatures warmer than all but the most recent decades…This was a period of extensive and persistent aridity over western North America. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests drought in the mid-12th century far exceeded the severity, duration, and extent of subsequent drought.”

    And:

    “However, major 20th century droughts pale in comparison to droughts documented in paleoclimatic records over the past two millennia.”

    Okay, so we may need some of Mann’s dodgy statistical analysis to get rid of that pesky Medieval Dry Period.

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Sometimes evidence just doesn’t cut it. Take the following BBC article, for example:

    ‘Surreal’ January wildfire shuts California highway

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60092300

    “The National Weather Service (NWS) reported a ‘surreal fire behaviour given the wet Oct and Dec’.”

    You would think that the presence of a wildfire in the absence of hot, dry weather would cause people to reconsider whether they had previously over-estimated the Probability of Necessity (PN) for such conditions, and underestimated the Probability of Sufficiency (PS) of a lighted match and inadequate forestry management. But no, the NSW statement goes on to say:

    “Anecdotally it seems as though the long term drought is acting like a chronic illness where even recent rains and cold winter weather isn’t helping to keep fires from developing.”

    Well, anecdotally, water has memory and that is how homeopathy is supposed to work, so maybe soil has its memory of former dryness.

    Seriously though, it isn’t anecdote we need here but a better understanding of the prevailing conditions following the recent cold, wet weather. Also, when your best understanding is leading to ‘surreal’ conclusions you should take a step back. However, there will never be any retreat from the good-old BBC, as they go on to remind us all in the article that:

    “Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires. The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.”

    Wet is the new dry, so it seems.

    Liked by 1 person

  55. John, clearly it’s the wrong sort of water in deepest, darkest California.

    Like

  56. Alan,

    Yes, and the wrong sort of cold. Although, it should be said that forest fires correlate better with drought than they do with hot weather.

    Like

  57. Indeed fires correlate with drought, certainly in Northern California (San Francisco Bay area and points north) but droughts occur in the summer which are hot (except for San Francisco itself which tends to be cold and moist when fogs roll in (every late afternoon)). In the hills east of Berkeley and Oakland (where I lived) there would be no rain in late Spring and Summer. The vegetation would turn golden – beautiful but potentially deadly.

    Like

  58. “‘A deranged pyroscape’: how fires across the world have grown weirder
    Despite the rise of headline-grabbing megafires, fewer fires are burning worldwide now than at any time since antiquity. But this isn’t good news – in banishing fire from sight, we have made its dangers stranger and less predictable”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/03/a-deranged-pyroscape-how-fires-across-the-world-have-grown-weirder

    It’s one of the Guardian’s long read series, so settle down for a …. long read. Including things like this, which I never thought I’d read at the Guardian:

    “…With headlines reporting enormous fires from Sacramento to Siberia, it’s easy to feel that we’re already on the brink of a devastating global conflagration.

    The truth, though, is stranger. Satellites allow researchers to monitor wildfires around the world. And when they do, they don’t see a planet igniting. Rather, they see one where fires are going out, and quickly. Fire has a long and productive place in human history, but there’s now less of it around than at any point since antiquity. We’re driving fire from the land and from our daily lives, where it was once a constant presence. What used to be a harmonious relationship between humanity and fire has become a hostile one.

    Fewer fires burn today, but the ones left are formidable. Our pyroscape has become deranged, with fire taking on new shapes, visiting new places and consuming new fuels. The results are as confounding as they are unsettling, and our instincts are poor guides. Although we often hear about fires where rich people reside, such as in Australia’s south and the US west, fires kill the most – by far – in places where poor people live, like south-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The deadliest fires aren’t the largest and most spectacular ones, but the smaller, regular ones that are rarely reported by global media. They kill by smoke rather than flame, and their main cause isn’t global heating. Many are kindled by corporate-driven land clearance….

    …Our rapid economic growth has taken fire from old places and carried it to new ones….

    …nfernos blaze hot on our screens. And yet overall, as scientists have repeatedly noted, the amount of land burning yearly is going down. By a lot. Between 1998 and 2015, it decreased by a quarter, according to a 2017 study in the journal Science. Even flame-addled California, where fires have increased in the past two decades, is still markedly less fiery than it once was. Stephen Pyne, a brilliant chronicler of fire’s history, estimates that before Europeans arrived in California, fires, natural and anthropogenic, burned twice the area that they now do….”.

    Like

  59. Despite the article in the Guardian just 2 weeks ago offering a dose of reality about wildfires (they are declining, not increasing), today the Guardian offers us this:

    “‘Loading the dice’: climate crisis could increase southern California wildfires”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/17/california-wildfires-increase-study##

    “Global heating will cause ‘megafires resistant to fire suppression practices’ with 25% of land being burned by 2040”

    And much, much more in similarly alarmist vein.

    Like

  60. Never mind the fires the, trees are getting hit by storm Duddly or some other name (now that they name every one)

    saw a pic of uprooted tree & thought not much root to hold it in the ground ?

    Like

  62. “Global warming and land use change to drive more extreme wildfires”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60483431

    “Extreme wildfires are set to become more frequent, increasing by around 50% by the end of this century, according to a new UN report.

    The report finds there’s an elevated risk in the Arctic and other regions previously unaffected by fires.

    The scientists define extreme fires as extraordinary conflagrations that occur roughly once in a hundred years.

    Researchers say that rising temperatures and changes to the way we use land will drive the increase.

    The new study calls for a radical reallocation of financial resources from fighting fires to prevention.”

    There’s an embedded linl to this:

    “Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires”

    https://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading-wildfire-rising-threat-extraordinary-landscape-fires

    That takes you to a site where you can download the full report.

    Like

  64. It’s difficult to know what to say here. Matt McGrath has got his headline, and there is never a shortage of good pictures to bring the threat vividly to life. However, the report makes it clear that the problem is a combination of changing land use, declining investment in fire prevention and warming temperatures; although, of course, it is the last-mentioned that steals the show. The prediction is simply an extrapolation from current numbers. Without a more detailed appraisal of the causative factors one should not be attempting a single takeaway message, but Matt knows that is exactly what his readers will be doing.

    Like

  65. “‘It wiped us out’: history of US forest mismanagement fans the flames of disaster”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/08/new-mexico-wildfires-us-forest-service

    “…Before a tsunami of flames ripped through this canyon in Tierra Monte, the canopy was so thick that it was impossible to see the nearby mountain. But two prescribed burns set by the US Forest Service (USFS) – one on Hermits Peak, the other in Calf Canyon to the south-west – have changed all that.

    When the blazes merged to form the biggest wildfire in state history, flames engulfed nearly 160 acres (65 hectares) of riparian forest that once belonged to her father. “It wiped us out,” Lopez said.

    Like so many in the devastation zone, she squarely places the blame on the USFS, not only for starting a prescribed burn in the windy month of April – when gusts reached 70 mpg – but for a century of conflict with rural communities. Known locally as La Floresta, the USFS is often seen as a feudal lord, a faraway government entity that has accumulated vast holdings with little idea of how to properly steward them or enough funds to do the job.

    The community’s fury runs almost too deep for words, says Antonia Roybal-Mack, a Mora native whose family lost hundreds of acres to the fire. “Really pissed off is literally an understatement.”

    In nearly two dozen interviews with people affected by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires, the same sentiments emerge: the USFS has a history, locals argue, of mismanaging the forest. In particular, they say the agency has limited or prohibited people from the long-held tradition of collecting firewood and other timber, the kind of maintenance the forest needed. If they had been able to tend to it the way they had for generations, they believe the conflagration would have been far less devastating.

    “The prescribed burn was the match,” says Roybal-Mack. “But the fuel was there for decades when they wouldn’t let people into the forest to collect vigas or firewood.”…”.

    There’s much more. Worth a read, IMO. No doubt normal service will be resumed at the Guardian shortly, and it will be climate change wot dun it.

    Liked by 1 person

  66. “Biden faces anger over huge New Mexico wildfire sparked by federal burns
    President visits state beset by Hermits Peak Calif Canyon fire, result of two accidental fires that merged”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/11/biden-new-mexico-wildfire-federal-burns

    “Joe Biden landed in New Mexico on Saturday amid anger and frustration from wildfire survivors as he visited the state to review efforts to fight its biggest blaze in recorded history – which was started by federal officials….

    …“This is not a natural disaster, this was man made by a government entity,” said Ella Arellano, whose family lost hundreds of acres of forest around the village of Holman. “It’s a mess, just a big mess that will take generations to recover from.“

    With more than 320,000 acres of mountains blackened by the Hermits Peak Calif Canyon fire, communities are preparing for mudslides, ash flows and flooding.

    Before departing for New Mexico, Biden said he supported full federal funding to compensate for the cost of firefighting and recovery but added that it needed congressional approval….”.

    Not climate change, then. But of course we also get this:

    “Another fire in south-west New Mexico is the second-largest in state history, underlining concerns that climate change is intensifying fires that overwhelm firefighters and threaten to destroy most forests in the US south west.”

    Like

  68. Not directly relevant, but possibly of interest, so it may as well be posted here, if John doesn’t mind:

    “Earliest evidence of wildfire found in Wales”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61929966

    “The oldest evidence of wildfire has been identified in South Wales.

    It takes the form of some truly ancient, charred remnants trapped in some truly ancient mudstone.

    And by ancient we’re talking 430 million years ago, during the Silurian Period of Earth history.

    Back then, only a few pioneering plants had made it on to land, so what was it that caught fire and produced the charcoal? Most likely it was a forest of giant fungi.”

    Like

  69. “Heatwave: Are wildfires happening more often?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-62200929

    The answer, as we know, is that they’re not. But you wouldn’t think it from the headline and accompanying picture. You have to dig quite a way into the article (past stuff like this: “Experts say that “extreme fire weather” – weather that creates tinderbox conditions for wildfires – is getting more frequent and more extreme, in nearly all regions of the world. Climate change, they say, is making vegetation more inflammable and soil dryer, which makes fires more likely, and often, when they occur, larger and more severe”) to get to the truth:

    “…However, in African savannahs the number of wildfires decreased over the same period, because of land use changes, including the expansion of farming. And this, experts say, is bringing down the overall number of wildfires worldwide, and the total burned area.

    “Savannahs are becoming patchy and that is why they are seeing less fire,” says Dr Niels Andela, senior remote sensing scientist at BeZero Carbon. “And because they make up 70% of the world’s wildfires, we are seeing a decline in the global total of wildland fire incidents.”…”.

    Liked by 1 person

  72. Mark,

    So what are you telling me? That the risk of forest fires has just increased by 10%?

    It’s worse than we thought 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  74. I’m still puzzled. The press seem happy to put the outbreak of fires down to record temperatures but they seem quite incurrious as to why there were no wildfires the day before the records were broken. As far as fire risk is concerned, nothing climatological of any significance changed yesterday, and yet…

    It is noticeable that nearly all of the fires occurred in urban settings. To get to the bottom of causation we need to start with that observation and then factor in social attitudes.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62232654

    Liked by 3 people

  76. From what BBC News last night informed me, fires affecting buildings in London originated at the interface between areas of grass and the buildings. Mind you, as I discussed with “she who must be listened to” flying over London reveals just how different our capital is, with areas of green (possibly straw coloured now) sprinkled throughout.

    Like

  77. Alan,

    Yes, I think the same applied outside of London as well. One has to keep an open mind, but it is fair to say that a building/grass interface is also a human/grass interface, so human activity would seem to be factor. But what? As with all causation puzzles, the key question is ‘what changed?’

    To make me sound like an expert, I’ll repeat that in Latin:

    Quid mutatum?

    Like

  80. Bill,

    You beat me to it. I was going to post it as a comment on my article “Global Cooling”, but here will do nicely.

    Like

  81. I see BBC have this – “North Woolwich fire: Blaze breaks out in tower block”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62241173

    with this comment –
    “‘Real inferno’
    A man who lives “just a few metres” from the high-rise flats described the scene as “a real inferno”.
    Rolly Apao, 45, was told by police to keep clear of the fire, with the grass next to his back garden also alight.
    The healthcare assistant said “firefighters were able to tackle the fire quickly”, adding he was scared “but I have to pay attention of my surroundings for my safety”.
    “We just had the heatwave yesterday which we [have had] to deal with mentally and physically… the heat is too much to bear.”

    what can I say, sad about the fire, but it’s just using people to promote an agenda.

    Like

  82. We are used to wildfires in Canada but the question about the cause of the ignition is always asked. Fires don’t spontaneously combust unless someone is leaving magnifying glasses around. In Canada most wildfires are started by lightning strikes. All others are assumed to be human caused.
    As John notes above, the UK press don’t seem interested in the origin of the urban fires except, as usual, to blame climate change. Though there is one quote in the BBC article linked by John:

    “The mayor has advised Londoners not to have barbecues in parks or private gardens over concerns they could set alight grass.”

    Liked by 1 person

  84. Potentially, apologies, comment trapped in Spam for no obvious reason. I have released it now.

    Like

  85. It seems everyone is now programmed to say what the establishment wants them to say:

    “Northamptonshire fire chief says heatwave is ‘a glimpse into the future'”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-62243623

    “A chief fire officer said the heatwave was “a glimpse into the future” with more fires caused by extreme heat.

    The UK saw record high temperatures on Tuesday and 15 fire services declared a state of emergency due to the number of blazes they were attending.

    Northamptonshire’s fire chief Darren Dovey said climate change was “going to change the type of incidents we go to”…

    …Mr Dovey said although Northamptonshire did not declare a major incident, it was “up to six times busier than normal”.

    “The surrounding counties were in the same position to us, some were in a worse position,” he said.

    Climate change meant “there’s going to be more wildfires, more water-related incidents, with people swimming where they shouldn’t be”, he added….

    …Mr Dovey said as well as heatwaves in the summer, the service would have to tackle more flooding in the winter due to climate change.

    He said: “The last few days have given us a glimpse into the future over the next five to 10 years, because this is likely to become the norm.

    “Lots of services are based on what happened 20 years ago and we need to look forward to 2030.”…

    Like

  86. “Europe wildfires: Are they linked to climate change?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58159451

    Cue scary accompanying photo and scary graph early in the article. However, read on:

    “What is the overall trend?
    This fire season is something of an outlier, according to experts.

    “We’ve actually seen a decline in the area burned by fires in the Mediterranean and across Europe more widely over the last couple of decades, in a way that doesn’t marry up with the rapidly changing risk of fires,” says Dr Matthew Jones, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.

    It is a complex picture, experts say, and hard to pick one reason for this trend for the whole of Europe.

    Over 95% of the fires in Europe are caused by human activity, according to the EFFIS….

    …Are fires linked to climate change?
    “Heatwaves and droughts are exacerbated by climate change and are absolutely the defining factor in years with massive wildfire outbreaks, like the present one,” Dr Jones says.

    But he says other factors such as forest management can affect the likelihood of fires in years with more typical weather.

    In high-risk areas of Europe, authorities are increasingly burning down some vegetation, under carefully managed conditions, to make it harder for wildfires to spread….”

    The article ends by telling us that:

    “Studies show increasing fire risk for central and southern regions of Europe over the past couple of decades.”

    Follow the link to a single study:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14480-8

    And it tells us that:

    “A complex picture is already emerging due to the interaction between weather changes and human practices, so while the global trend for burned areas is declining due to socioeconomic factors, some areas of the globe are already experiencing larger and more devastating fires. Particularly, Southern Europe has been long identified as a key hotspot area for risks induced by climate warming, including summer fires, droughts and heat wave events. However, increased fire danger projected for this region currently contrasts with realized fire impacts, which have been consistently decreasing over the last five decades mainly due to increasing fire prevention and suppressing capacities, among other complementary factors”.

    Like

  87. Mark,

    >”But he says other factors such as forest management can affect the likelihood of fires in years with more typical weather.”

    What a bizarre thing to say. It is precisely when the weather is atypically hot and dry that good forest management will have its greatest impact on fire risk. Methinks this is a man struggling with cognitive dissonance.

    I live in a high crime rate area so should I stop locking my house up at night? After all, security can be effective in typical areas but not, it seems, in mine.

    Like

  88. >”The UK saw record high temperatures on Tuesday and 15 fire services declared a state of emergency due to the number of blazes they were attending.”

    Again I ask, why did the fires all break out on the day the records were broken? Is there significance in the fact that Tuesday was the day that we were all told would be the day of highest risk and also the day we let the children stay off school?

    Anyway, there is one consolation. If records have to be broken before fires can break out, we should be safe now for a number of years to come 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  89. “Low winds stopped what might have been new ‘great fire of London’, says expert
    More than 40 houses were destroyed by fires on Britain’s hottest day. Now there are calls for an urgent rethink on building safety laws”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/23/low-winds-stopped-what-might-have-been-new-great-fire-of-london-says-expert

    A couple of interesting points to take away from the article (though I’m sure they’re not the points we are supposed to take away from it):

    “Most fires are started by people, usually accidentally, through sky lanterns, or by barbecues or camp fires that are thought to have been put out but continue to smoulder.”

    And:

    “Paul Bussey, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ fire expert advisory group, said: “Our legislation does not cover anything about external fires spreading from one building to another. We’re not used to it. But we really need to start thinking about it.

    “When you’re also dealing with a carbon-zero economy where we’re trying to use more timber and less concrete, it’s a challenging question.”

    Green living walls, such as one at the ExCeL building in London, could be considered a vector for a fire to spread, he added.”

    Like

  90. Headline from 4 days ago:

    “Scenes from hell: Trail of destruction across Doncaster as 40c record sparks wildfires”

    Headline yesterday from the same paper:

    “More deliberate acts of arson across Doncaster city last night”

    I’m saying nothing.

    Liked by 2 people

  91. “Major fire incident declared in Surrey and Londoners urged not to barbecue
    Firefighters continue to tackle ‘significant’ weather-related blazes, with several fire engines sent to large blaze on Hankley Common”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/24/major-incident-declared-surrey-fire-hankley-common

    How can the Guardian, with a straight face, call them weather-related blazes, while the article (well down, of course) says:

    “…Although the immediate cause of the fire is unknown, Surrey fire and rescue service also issued a plea to the public, saying: “Please help keep our outdoors safe: pack a picnic instead of a disposable barbecue and dispose of cigarettes correctly.”…”.

    Like

  92. >”How can the Guardian with a straight face call them weather-related blazes…?”

    Because, had it been pouring with rain outside, the blaze may never have happened. What we would have instead is a weather-related flood.

    Like

  94. Mark Twain wrote “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”

    Like

  95. “Wildfires: Why they start and how they can be stopped”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-41608281

    “Over the years, wildfires have become more frequent, widespread and intense, and 2022 has seen some countries – including the UK – record their highest temperatures in decades.”

    Except that’s not true. Where’s the BBC Climate Misinformation Specialists when you need them?

    “Experts believe this is due to the long-term impact of climate change.” – “this” being the wildfires that they claim are becoming more frequent, but which aren’t, as the BBC acknowledged itself here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-62200929

    Liked by 1 person

  96. Finally the ignition source for many of the fires in England during the recent hot, dry spell has been identified. It wasn’t climate change and high temperatures after all but rather disposable barbecues.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/29/disposable-barbecues-must-be-banned-in-england-says-fire-chief

    London’s fire commissioner has joined calls for a total national ban on disposable barbecues after they were blamed for starting wildfires in England during the recent spate of dry weather.

    Disposable barbecues were cited as the cause of several of the fires, including a serious blaze in Lickey Hills park near Birmingham. National Trust properties including Morden Hall Park, south London, were hit by large areas of scorched earth after fires from disposable barbecues, and the cliffs of Torbay in Devon were set ablaze.

    He said: “Despite our grass fire warnings, we have still seen some people behaving carelessly and recklessly. On Saturday, firefighters prevented a serious blaze at Wanstead Flats [east London] caused using a disposable barbecue.

    “We need urgent action now to see a national ban on the sale of disposable barbecues. They can be bought for as little as £5 and can cause untold damage, especially when the grass is as dry as it has been over the last few weeks.”

    Liked by 1 person

  98. Potentilla,

    Please accept our apologies for the vagaries of WordPress. I have searched and found your comment lurking in Spam. There is no justification for this, but regrettably it happens from time to time. I have released it from its prison, and it should appear shortly, as soon as the website catches up.

    Like

  99. And now we have some idea about how a lot of French wildfires started:

    “Adrenaline-seeking firefighter started French wildfires, say prosecutors
    Unnamed man in his 30s with ‘a need for social recognition’ faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/29/firefighter-chasing-adrenaline-hit-started-french-wildfires-say-prosecutors

    “A firefighter from the south of France is responsible for a series of wildfires in the region which he started in a quest for adrenaline, French authorities have said.

    The man, a volunteer firefighter from the Herault region, was arrested on Wednesday, regional prosecutors said.

    The case of the man called the “pyromaniac fireman” by French media has sparked a keen interest in France, which was shocked by a swathe of wildfires during last week’s heatwave that forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

    Montpellier prosecutor Fabrice Belargent said in a statement that the man had admitted starting fires with a lighter on 26 May, 21 July and most recently over the night of 26-27 July….”.

    Like

  100. Google using search terms like California wildfire arson and the number of articles about arsonists starting the fires in California, over a prolonged period of time, are legion.

    Liked by 1 person

  101. Hot and dry weather (especially the dry) is obviously a factor since it is a necessary component. However, it is rarely sufficient. When analysing an increase in fires it is simplistic to assume it is purely down to weather trends. This matters because it is important that all factors are identified to know what to do about it. I can see that banning disposable barbecues would be beneficial. I can also see a benefit in not reporting every fire as though it were unprecedented. Human fascination with fire is already dangerous enough as it is.

    Like

  102. Here is an interesting paper published in Nature Sustainability on the subject of California’s wildfires:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0451-7.epdf?sharing_token=NCV5E4qMH8mlTYjMHk0PU9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MFFZ2VbYeLo9xqBNRf6IQJNZu3BLvCqiaae3MufgS-rtzgSybEYHJXuwI7AMbngOyqT0fiYuvGBNkmBiLfktnjQP_DN4MicVx7KWiQtEN4oOyY_NQjC9tc6AU5UMSySoSIa442CcL8YZ2nnjWBHtydWMMXEho79G2CGrU3QJDEoRQoCvVKK4gudf96ZppEENOqhHi4SMezcq3x4Pxi998FzsiLvYFVrCCcNUIE5lHUES0QaRag_ikYjkCY_Sc7TNWe75enqLVno87zn0UYWLar&tracking_referrer=www.scientificamerican.com

    In it the authors state:

    “Catastrophic wildfires have increased in the Western United States in recent years, and particularly in California. These fires stem from a combination of climate change that has heightened hot and dry conditions, historic fire suppression policies that have enabled nearly a century of fuel (wood and other plant material) accumulation and insufficient fuel treatments that have removed too few of the accumulated fuels from the landscape.”

    As a consequence they advise:

    “Fundamental shifts in prescribed-burn policies, beyond those currently under consideration, are needed to address wildfires in California and worldwide.”

    And yet when conservative columnists picked up on this, the authors wrote the following rebuff in Scientific American:

    “In recent opinion pieces, they acknowledge that climate change might play a role in these fires, but they blame Democratic leadership for exacerbating fuel buildups through poor land management. As proof, they reference a study from early this year in Nature Sustainability. We wrote that study. These columnists are wrong…

    …fuel treatments alone are not the solution; we cannot disregard that our contributions to climate change continue to aggravate our risk.”

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-is-central-to-californias-wildfires/

    What part of the word ‘exacerbating’ did these authors not understand?

    Liked by 1 person

  103. Nothing like having a study appropriated by deniers to draw out a panicked scramble to display the authors’ good ol’ “climate conformist” badges.

    Climate change didn’t do it; didn’t have anything to do with it, at least not in France or California. These places get dry enough to burn every year. What exact role did the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere have? None that I can see. The dry weather is there anyway, and the other two must-haves are fuel and a spark. The spark has been coming from humans, by design or accident. The fuel comes from the habit of putting fires out when they start, and not allowing controlled burns.

    Meanwhile people are invading fire-prone habitats, plonking their houses there, and screaming climate change when they get burnt out.

    Liked by 2 people

  104. Not exactly JIT. I lived for three years in Contra Costa County, across the Bay from San Francisco and I across the Berkeley Hills. Every late Summer and early Fall the hills would turn a gorgeous gold. Gorgeous but dangerously fire prone. When we bought our house we had to sign a covenant promising to remove dried vegetation from our bit of the hills so reducing the fire risk. This was quite an onerous task but it’s value became evident the last fire season we were there. Some neighbours who had not cleared their hilltop had fire sweep down into their gardens and in two cases into their houses. Thank goodness most of us had swimming pools.
    You don’t always need controlled burns, if you are prepared to physically remove the potential fuel.

    Liked by 1 person

  106. As a further aside, the article in Scientific American cites a paper that purports to show that over half of the Californian fires, and their extent, can be attributed to climate change. I’ve seen this paper before and I was intrigued to know how they could perform such a calculation. The answer is, of course, that they can’t. What they actually do is demonstrate a very high correlation between aridity and forest fires in California. From that they deduce aridity to be the primary causation factor. They then do the usual trick of running CMIP5 with and without anthropogenic influence to demonstrate that over 50% of the increase in aridity is due to climate change. The rest is a non sequitur. There is no attempt to model with and without controlled burning, for example.

    Like

  107. “‘Wake-up call’ for climate-sceptic Czechs as blaze devastates national park
    Sentiment is shifting among politicians and public as beloved region of forested mountains goes up in flames”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/30/wake-up-call-for-climate-sceptic-czechs-as-blaze-devastates-national-park

    “…Police are investigating suspicions that the fire was sparked by human negligence. But its rapid spread at a time of record-high temperatures, and similar blazes elsewhere in Europe and beyond, has increased acceptance that the emergency is real even in circles that were once hotbeds of denial….”.

    What do Reuters say?

    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/czech-german-firefighters-battle-blaze-national-park-2022-07-26/

    “Prime Minister Petr Fiala on Tuesday visited the area where authorities suspect the blaze was ignited by a negligent park visitor over the weekend. ”

    OK so no proof, but a good chance it was caused by human action, whether accidental or deliberate. Has climate change made it worse than it would have been? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not convinced that the Guardian successfully makes the link, whatever the Guardian thinks.

    Like

  108. Mark,

    These people will think what they want. We are just in that ‘circle’ that they dismiss as a hotbed of denial.

    Like

  109. BBC Spin again – Ade Adepitan visits the Greek Island of Evia one year on from the devastating forest fires caused by climate change. He meets locals looking to resuscitate the struggling tourism industry, and finds out how they hope to give the island its own Happy Evia After.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0019tqj/the-travel-show-31-happy-evia-after

    watched it (1st 15mts) and the title does not reflect what was said, it was the usual “scientists say MMGW has made this more likely” or along those lines.

    Like

  110. ps – BBC News
    Ban disposable BBQs, London Fire Brigade urges
    “Andy Roe said: “We need urgent action now to see a national ban on the sale of disposable barbecues.
    More than 30 grass fires in London required at least four fire engines to attend last week.”
    “Last week is another example of how we are increasingly being challenged by new extremes of weather as our climate changes and we’re developing long-term strategies to deal with more incidents like this in the future.”
    “His call comes just a few days after LFB was found by a watchdog to require improvement by every measure it is assessed on.
    The 11 areas highlighted include understanding and preventing fires and other risks, making best use of resources and ensuring fairness and promoting diversity.”

    not a lot I can say.

    Like

  111. Bill McGuire, the vulcanologist who penned Hothouse Earth (maybe from inside a volcano) has a useful insight on the UK wildfires: Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/30/total-climate-meltdown-inevitable-heatwaves-global-catastrophe

    “Who would have thought that a village on the edge of London would be almost wiped out by wildfires in 2022,” says McGuire. “If this country needs a wake-up call then surely that is it.”
    “That is the trouble with writing a book about climate breakdown,” says McGuire. “By the time it is published it is already out of date. That is how fast things are moving.”

    The country needs a wake-up call to stop throwing away disposable barbecues when it is hot and dry outside.

    Liked by 1 person

  112. dfhunter and potentilla, apologies once more. Comments now released from Spam.

    Like

  113. Mcguire, you will recall, is the guy who said that global warming will lead to an increase in earthquakes and tsunamis. I wonder if he is still peddling that nonsense in his latest book. And as for being one of the country’s leading scientists, give me a break.

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  115. Mark,

    I’ve just finished writing this in a reply to Richard following his posting of the Fenton interview with Bret Weinstein:

    “In the meantime, all I’ll say is that the narrative is all, and woe betide anyone who reveals any facts that run counter.”

    And then I read this Anthony Watts quote given in the Spiked article you have now posted:

    “This wholesale erasure of important public data stinks, but in today’s narrative control culture that wants to rid us of anything that might be inconvenient or doesn’t fit the ‘woke’ narrative, it isn’t surprising.”

    It’s all very worrying. As for the recent increase in tree cover burn in Russia, all of it is easily explained by two factors:

    a) An increase in fires deliberately started by criminal loggers, as well-documented by the authorities.

    b) The introduction of a new policy in which fires are allowed to burn and are only tackled when they approach populated areas. This is a cost-cutting policy rendered necessary by the failing Russian economy.

    Both of these facts are readily available to Matt McGrath but neither fits the narrative that he is paid to promulgate. I remember his BBC ‘news item’ well. I just sighed.

    Liked by 1 person

  116. “The Fact-Checkers Are Piling on Again – This Time About Forest Fires”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/23/the-fact-checkers-are-piling-on-again-this-time-about-forest-fires/

    I did like the concluding words:

    “But wildfires are a natural, and vital, part of the Earth’s ecosystem. Humans do not cause fires by warming the planet, although they do ignite a vast number of them, either accidentally or on purpose. Biblical incantations of fire and damnation have always been popular with religious cults – the climate Thermogeddonites are just the latest in a long line.”

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  117. The guy piling on is called David Vetter. He has degrees in archeology and journalism and believes this qualifies him to say when others demonstrate scientific illiteracy.

    https://www.davidrvetter.com/about

    These fact checkers really are legends in their own lunchtime.

    Like

  118. Elsewhere on this website I have declared the view that inoculation theory, as plugged by Messrs Lewandowsky and Cook, is just dangerous junk science. I present below a good illustration of its dangers, and the reason I choose to do so here is because the example I provide relates to bushfires and their causation. Firstly, I link below to an article that Lewandowsky uses to ‘inoculate’ against misinformation:

    https://theconversation.com/bushfires-bots-and-arson-claims-australia-flung-in-the-global-disinformation-spotlight-129556

    The above article maintains that attempts to form a link between the recent bushfires and arson were part of a disinformation campaign aimed at distracting from the ‘true’ cause, i.e. climate change. Understanding that there is no legitimate evidence for a trend in arson that could be used to suggest an alternative causation is an essential part of the article’s debunking, and hence the pre-bunking of similar denialist talking points.

    Now here is the link to the peer-reviewed study that provides the legitimate evidence for the growing problem of arson within Australia:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6762153/

    I know I keep going on about Lewandowsky and Cook, but I do so because they are a menace to science who seem to have cornered the market in the application of pseudoscience within policy support.

    Liked by 1 person

  119. Further to the above, it is worth pointing out that the article investigating trends in arson in Australia was posted in the National Library of Medicine, under the category of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. It is a fine example of what psychologists can do when they put their mind to it and concentrate upon the data. It uses knowledge regarding mental illness, substance abuse and other psychological and sociological problems to discern causative factors behind patterns of arson.

    With their own background, this is the sort of scientific investigation Lewandowsky and Cook should be contributing towards, rather than dicking around in a propaganda battle that has as much to do with scientific rigour as do astrology and homeopathy.

    Liked by 1 person

  120. Extracts from the New York Times:

    In 2020, more than 16 million homes in the West were located in fire-prone areas near forests, grasslands and shrub lands, where the risks of conflagration are highest. That’s a rise from roughly 10 million homes in 1990, according to research published Friday from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the United States Forest Service.
    “That’s the perfect storm,” said Volker Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who helped lead the research. “Millions of houses have been built in places that will sooner or later burn,”
    The state now has roughly 5.1 million homes in what’s known as the “wildland-urban interface,” the term for areas, often on the outskirts of cities, where houses and other development are built near or among flammable wild vegetation. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains have seen especially fast growth.

    “By and large, most new development housing construction in California has been going on in the periphery of existing urban areas,” said Karen Chapple, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of a report on rebuilding after wildfire disasters. “It’s happening because that’s where the land is cheap. So we end up putting housing in these very vulnerable areas.”

    Similar trends can be seen throughout the West. In Colorado, the number of homes built in the wildland-urban interface has nearly doubled to more than 1 million since 1990. Some of the fastest growth has unfolded along the Front Range, where the number of large, high-severity fires has increased in recent decades.Texas now has 3.2 million homes in the WUI and saw the fastest growth of any state over the past decade.
    The rapid growth of housing in flammable areas is a key reason wildfires have become more destructive over time. Not only are the homes themselves more likely to burn, but when more people live near forests and grasslands, there’s also a greater chance that fires will start in the first place. While wildfires are often sparked by lightning, humans themselves cause the vast majority of ignitions, often by accident: a cigarette thrown out the window, or a vehicle’s muffler setting fire to dry grass.

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  121. potentilla – thanks for a sober report on the fires which we in the UK would never hear from our MSM.

    Like

  122. From Denierland:

    Worse, local authorities allow development in the heart of what they know to be fire-prone habitat. The Camp Fire in California in 2018 destroyed 95% of the buildings in Paradise, Butte County. No doubt Paradise was a beautiful place to live. But its population had more than trebled since 1960, and it was not as you might imagine, a large clearing in the woods. The buildings had been dropped in amongst the trees, clearing only enough to make room for the building footprints and roads. It was a recipe for disaster. Good conditions for wildfires will be there every summer; with more and more houses and people living among the trees, there will inevitably be more houses and people at risk. For this reason the effects of wildfires are likely to get worse year on year without any intervention from climate change.

    It’s refreshing at least for the NYT to put the blame somewhere other than carbon dioxide emissions for once.

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  123. This reminds me of the old joke about when a local was asked why they had built the airport on the outskirts of the city. The answer was because that’s where the aeroplanes land.

    Similarly, people are not building where the fires are happening; the fires are happening where the people are building.

    Also, Jit, after a Californian town was recently hit by a wildfire, I looked on Google maps to see what the area looked like. It was exactly as you describe – a whole town of properties embedded in woods.

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  124. You don’t need woods for towns to be fire-prone. My house in Moraga (Contra Costa County, near San Francisco) was set in tall-grass covered hills which turned golden and tinder-dry in the summer and very susceptible to fire. Home owners were supposed to cut their bit of hill but few did.

    Like

  125. “The inconvenient truth about France’s forest fires
    Politicians are desperate to blame climate change”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-inconvenient-truth-about-france-s-forest-fires

    From Bordeaux to Brittany to the Ardeche, investigations swiftly concluded that the majority of fires had nothing to do with climate change. In the 15 departments that comprise France’s Mediterranean region there have been 36 fires this summer that destroyed more than ten hectares of forest: 26 were man-made, of which 17 were started on purpose.

    Éric Brocardi, the spokesman for the National Federation of Firefighters, told the current affairs magazine Marianne that 90 per cent of fires in France are of human origin, compared to 60 per cent in North America, where fires caused by lightning or dry storms are more common.

    Like

  126. Currently stuck in hospital I don’t have access to nor probably the patience to read newspapers cover to cover. I am reliant upon “she who must be listened to” to bring me cuttings that she feels might interest me. A few days ago she brought me an article cut from the Guardian but copied from the Australian Associated Press which I thought would be of interest here but which I have not seen mentioned. If it has been discussed my apologies.

    The article was titled “Helicopter sparked bushfires on toilet break, inquest hears”. As you will hear climate change gets nary a mention- remember this is from the Guardian.

    The fire burned for five weeks and consumed 87,923 hectares of the Australian Capital Territory. Ange21 (the helicopter, at the height of the Australian summer, was on a scouting mission to identify helipads to be used by firefighting teams when it’s searchlight set the ground afire.

    Reasons for the inquiry need not concern us, but the cause of the fire precluding any involvement of climate change, and the story within the Guardian of all places (take note Mark) and the irony of the helicopter’s mission and the nature of that mission I found of interest and thought that others here might. I’m afraid I cannot supply a date for the cutting.

    Liked by 1 person

  128. not sure best post to drop this into –

    as I was flicking for something to watch today, stumbled on this –
    American Forest Fires: The Untold Story
    “Are government policies and bureaucracy the REAL fire starters in America? Are answers to a major crisis staring us in the face? Learn what brought us to this point, and the innovative solutions which could keep disaster from setting nature ablaze.”

    4 part docu & sounds good as it tackles many things brought up on this blog re forest fires.

    unfortunately I can’t find a vid link

    Like

  129. just watched – American Forest Fires: The Untold Story (2022)
    just proves what level headed people have been saying for years.
    can’t find a vid link, but worth a watch IMHO (made by earthx tv)

    Like

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