![]() “Climate change is creating the perfect conditions for larger, more intense wildfires,” said Scheller, who uses geospatial analytics to examine the effects of climate change and human activities on long-term landscape health. ![]() ![]() Robert Scheller, a professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State’s College of Natural Resources, said greenhouse gas emissions continue to drive changes in the climate, contributing to warmer-than-average surface temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns - trends that are expected to increase the frequency, intensity and duration of wildfires across the U.S. That’s more than double the annual average of 3.3 million acres burned in the 1990s, when a greater number of fires occurred annually. In fact, since 2000, an annual average of 70,072 wildfires have burned an annual average of 7 million acres across the country. Large-scale wildfires like the August Complex Fire and Dixie Fire are becoming increasingly common in the United States as climate change accelerates. Less than a year later, the Dixie Fire burned more than 963,000 acres throughout the region, resulting in more than $1 billion in damages. ![]() Over the course of nearly three months in 2020, the August Complex Fire, fueled by extreme heat and severe drought conditions, burned more than a million acres across Northern California, destroying hundreds of buildings and forcing thousands of people to evacuate. ![]()
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