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Though the number of wildfires nationwide has slowly dwindled over the years, the fires themselves are getting more severe. One of the reasons, forestry experts say, is that we’ve gotten a little too good at putting them out. Climate change, which brings us longer, hotter, drier seasons, is also driving the increase in intensity. But part of the problem, said forestry expert Kira Hoffman, is that fire is no longer our friend. Where once we’d let forest fires burn if they weren’t threatening a community or infrastructure, and where once Indigenous people would practice cultural burns — setting fires around habitation sites for safety and resource management — decades ago the needle swung toward suppressing fires. … “There’s this kind of big shift that happens in the 1930s where we start to think of fire as really the enemy,” said Hoffman, a post-doctoral researcher in fire ecology at the University of British Columbia.
From wildfires consuming tens of thousands of acres across Europe, to millions of acres ravaged in Argentina’s Corrientes province in February, and hundreds of wildfires now burning across Canada, 2022 has seen plenty of extreme fire events fuelled by heat waves and droughts that scientists say have become more frequent. “Not only does it seem like these fires are getting larger, more deadly, and more frequent, it seems like they’re becoming more common across the globe,” says Dan Pisut, Environment and Climate Resilience Lead with digital mapping company Esri, in a story map titled “
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — More than four grueling months and $300 million later, the federal government has declared the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history 100% contained, a notable milestone but just another step in what local residents and officials say will be a long journey toward recovery. The blaze was sparked in the spring by two errant prescribed fires conducted by the U.S. Forest Service. More than 530 square miles of the Rocky Mountain foothills burned, hundreds of homes were destroyed, livelihoods were lost and drinking water supplies were contaminated. Local officials say there are years of work ahead of them to restore the landscape and protect against post-fire flooding. …The scar left behind by the wildfire includes some areas that were reduced to ash and others where the severity was less intense. …The U.S. Forest Service said helicopters will distribute about 138 tons (125 metric tonnes) of seed and 5,440 tons (4,935 metric tonnes) of mulch. 
CALIFORNIA — Crews on Sunday were close to fully containing the McKinney Fire, the largest fire in the North State this year. Firefighters had a containment line around 95% of the 60,392-acre fire Sunday. The blaze, which broke out July 29, is burning about 15 miles west of Yreka in Siskiyou County. The fire has destroyed 185 structures and killed four people, mostly in and around the tiny community of Klamath River. The Alex and Yeti fires, which also are burning along the Klamath River west of Yreka, have also been nearly encircled by a line to contain the fire, according to the U.S. Forest Service. …So far this year, 181,252 acres have burned across the state. In 2021, more than 1.3 million acres had burned in California, as of Aug. 8. Over the past five years, the average number of acres burned in California is 623,202 acres.
MOSCOW – Forest fires raging south of Moscow have intensified, Russian authorities said on Monday, as residents of the capital complained of a sharp smell of smoke pervading the air. Since early August fires have been raging across the Ryazan region, some 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, where officials have been scrambling personnel to put them out. The region’s acting governor Pavel Malkov said a state of emergency had been put in place and that residents in two settlements – Olgino and Golovanovo – had been ordered to evacuate. “The area covered by the fire continues to grow slowly. According to the Aerial Forest Protection Service, we are looking at about 8,000-9,000 hectares today,” he said, describing the situation as “tense”. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said the city had sent equipment and personnel to the Ryazan region but that their efforts had not been enough to contain the blazes.
MADRID — A wildfire burning out of control in Spain’s eastern province of Valencia has become one of the country’s biggest fires this year, and 35 aircraft were deployed to fight it as the blaze entered its fifth day, authorities said Friday. The wildfire has already scorched more than 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) along a 137-kilometer (85-mile) perimeter. Efforts to bring it under control Thursday failed and strong winds have made the fire “very aggressive,” the Valencian regional government said. In neighboring Portugal, the government on Friday announced a nationwide three-day state of alert beginning Sunday. Portugal is in the grip of a severe drought and has also seen devastating wildfires this summer. The measure, which grants authorities special, temporary powers such as barring people from woodlands, is a response to forecasts of inland temps above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) beginning Sunday in what could be the country’s third heat wave this summer.
Thick smog blanketed Moscow on Thursday as it blew in from nearby forest fires, which the national forestry agency said were made worse by neglectful local authorities. Hundreds of firefighters and several aircraft were battling the blazes in the Ryazan region, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) southeast of Moscow, the emergencies ministry said. The Federal Forestry Agency accused the region’s authorities of downplaying the scale of the fires and delaying an adequate response. “The forestry authorities of the Ryazan region and its nature areas let the situation with the forest fires slip and hid its real scale,” the agency told the RIA Novosti news agency. The region’s governor Pavel Malkov said Wednesday that over 800 hectares (1,980 acres) had been affected by the fires. But the international environmental group Greenpeace put the figure at over 3,300 hectares.
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