Climate variability and wild fire in the western U.S., with disturbing implications for a warmer future

Recently, severe and extensive fires in the Western United States have been blamed on decades of fire suppression, with the obvious remedy of proactive thinning. These fires have also, however, coincided with seasons of "fire climate", i.e., hot dry summers. Analysis of state-by-state data on area burned and anomalies of temperature and precipitation reveal in most states (except California and Nevada) a strong, nonlinear dependence of area burned on summer temperature and precipitation anomalies. Consideration of numerous scenarios of future climate suggests that mean area burned could at least double in coming decades, as the frequency of "fire climate" increases.