Increasingly frequent wildfires linked to human-caused climate change, UCLA-led study finds

Smoke from a 2019 Northern California wildfire could be seen by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Research by scientists from UCLA and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory strengthens the case that climate change has been the main cause of the growing amount of land in the western U.S. that has been destroyed by large wildfires over the past two decades. Rong Fu, a UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and the study's corresponding author, said the trend is likely to worsen in the years ahead. "I am afraid that the record fire seasons in recent years are only the beginning of what will come, due to climate change, and our society is not prepared for the rapid increase of weather contributing to wildfires in the American West." The dramatic increase in destruction caused by wildfires is borne out by U.S. Geological Survey data.