Breaking News: Wildfires

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CU Boulder scientists explore ways to help people and communities around the world become more resilient to a changing climate.

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Cornell University climate scientist Flavio Lehner notes that the Smokehouse Creek fire, like the Eastland County fires of 2022, sits geographically near a dividing line between regions of the country that are forecast to experience either more or less precipitation in the future.

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Irvine, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 — In a study recently published in the journal Ecology, University of California, Irvine scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California’s coastal sage scrub ecosystems. Titled “Long-term drought promotes invasive species by reducing wildfire severity,” the research, led by Sarah Kimball, Ph.

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Connor Bleisch, a graduate research assistant in the College of Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has won the 2023 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Michael H. Freilich Data Visualization Competition grand prize. The honoree is being recognized for a data visualization project that places the user in the middle of a first-hand recreation of a raging wildfire in the Sequoia National Park in 2021.

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A multi-institutional team of researchers studied how solar radiation from the sun interacts with individual tar balls. This research, featured on the cover of ACS Publications' Environmental Science & Technology, provides insights into how wildfires influence climate change.

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Fueled by increasing temperatures and droughts, severe wildfires are on the rise around the world — as are the smoke-borne contaminants that harm the environment and human health. In 2023, Canada recorded its worst wildfire season ever, with fires releasing more than 290 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. California also experienced record-setting fire seasons in 2020 and 2021.

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Record heat across the world profoundly impacted the global water cycle in 2023, contributing to severe storms, floods, megadroughts and bushfires, new research from The Australian National University (ANU) shows.

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Wars, strikes, Barbie, politics and planets dominated the news in 2023, and Michigan State University faculty experts were on hand to add research-based science and scholarship to many of the top statewide, national and global stories of the year.

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Wildfire management systems outfitted with remote sensing technology could improve first responders’ ability to predict and respond to the spread of deadly forest fires.

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Researchers have shown that the effects of wildfires are not limited to terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems are also undergoing rapid changes. The study found that fire debris transforms lakes and other aquatic ecosystems, with implications for fisheries and water quality.

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Research shows that counties with higher black and lower-income populations receive less support in wildfire disasters.

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Scientists have developed a web-based tool to help communities design an optimal wildfire evacuation plan.

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There is no longer any question of how to prevent high-intensity, often catastrophic, wildfires that have become increasingly frequent across the Western U.S., according to a new study by researchers at Stanford and Columbia universities.

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Among individuals receiving in-center hemodialysis treatment in Washington, Oregon, and California, exposure to wildfire-related air pollution was associated with elevated risks of hospitalization and mortality.

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Nearly half of all New York counties lacked real-time information to determine air quality during the wildfire smoke days this past summer. Now, a Cornell researcher is leading an effort to install air-quality sensors in 28 upstate counties where there were none.

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Read the latest research news on air pollution, nanoplastics, waterborne illnesses and more in the Pollution channel on Newswise.