![]() ![]() This means that the dry season, when forests are most vulnerable to fire, lasts longer. ![]() The weather is warmer and dryer, and in the West, snow melts earlier in the year than it once did. Scientists say one of the main reasons causing the increase in megafires is climate change. Over the past 40 years, the average number of acres of forested land consumed by wildfire each year in the United States has increased by 1,000 percent. Once Rare, Now Common Megafires were once rare, but they are becoming increasingly common. Other wildfire experts expand the definition of a megafire beyond “acres burned” to mean wildfires that have an unusually large impact on people and the environment. Interagency Fire Center defines a megafire by its size: It is a wildfire that burns more than 40,500 hectares (100,000 acres) of land. The Yellowstone fire focused national attention on a growing wave of big fires eating up forests in the West as well as in other parts of the world. ![]() In August 1988, high winds changed small, smoldering wildfires in Yellowstone National Park into raging firestorms-an event that came to be known as “Black Saturday.” Today, wildfire experts call the burning of Yellowstone, located in the western United States, something else: a “ megafire.” When the smoke finally cleared, a vast area of forest-0.5 million hectares (1.2 million acres), nearly 36 percent of the park-had burned. ![]()
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