Post by @weatherwest@mastodon.social

2026-07-27 03:06 UTC

From the boreal forests of Ontario to the moors of the Scottish Highlands to the grasslands & forests of Columbia River Plateau in NW U.S. to the maritime pine forests in France, these exceptional fires have been preceded, over weeks to months, by exceptional warmth and dryness.

Replies (2)

@weatherwest@mastodon.social 2026-07-27 03:06

The conspicuous overlap between record-breaking warmth, dryness, and/or low snowpack and these fires is simply not a coincidence. The scientific evidence linking increasingly extreme fire weather, as well as increasingly extreme wildfires themselves, to climate warming is clear.

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@nxskok@cupoftea.social 2026-07-27 03:33

@weatherwest@mastodon.social my daughter (a fire ranger in NW Ontario) says that most of their fires are started by lightning (there are not many humans around in that part of the world). So a combination of warm and dry and thunderstorms (with lightning and not too much rain) is what produces most of their fires. Of course, in UK and Europe there are a lot more people around and a lot more scope for wildfires to be started by human carelessness.

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