wildfires ravaged new mexico and other western states in the 1970s to the point that coop characterized the burning as “one of the more extreme” fires of its time. hard to believe, but since then, the fires have only grown worse. coop watched as fires continued throughout his adolescence. each time a forest burned, it was changed forever. as he entered adulthood, coop wanted to understand why. eventually, the worsening fires caused more severe forest changes, forever altering the landscape around him. there was never doubt about the career path coop took. rather, only a nagging question about the wildfires: ‘what can we do about it?’ 

that’s what coop is pursuing now as a professor at western colorado university within the biology department and the school of environment and sustainability, where he is researching wildfires and their nature. after growing up in the fire-sensitive southwest, he aims to discover how forests rebound from the ongoing and escalating destruction of wildfires.

wildfire activity is growing in extremity and severity as climate change continues to warm the planet. in february, the united nations environment programme published a report warning of an increase in “extraordinary” wildfires and a “global wildfire crisis.” the unep predicts that by 2030, global wildfires will increase by 14%, and will reach a 50% increase by 2100. the report also prodded governments to redirect their spending towards a “fire ready formula,” which encourages “two-thirds of spending devoted to planning, prevention, preparedness, and recovery, with one-third left for response.” 

coop’s recently published study, “extreme fire spread events and area burned under recent and future climate in the western usa,” aims to help predict future wildfire extremity, which in turn, could support the preparation the unep recommended. 

the study, published in april, confirmed that “exceptional” wildfire seasons will become more likely in the future, and that future wildfire extremes are “predicted to exceed anything yet witnessed.” the researchers discovered that rare, single-day extreme fire events are massive contributors to overall fire effects and destruction.

in 2020, the western united states experienced several severe wildfires that made for an unforgettable year of destruction. in california alone, more than 4.2 million acres were burned — approximately 4% of the state’s land, according to the california department of forestry and fire protection (cal fire). about 10,000 fires burned over the course of the year, and cal fire determined 2020 to be the largest wildfire season recorded in modern california history. if fires continue to grow more intense, as the research predicts, finding a solution for containment is vital. 

“these very rare events that can happen very quickly have outsized impacts,” explained coop. “we found that just like the top 1% of single-day burning events, accounts for over 20% of the total area burned. so just those very few extreme fire runs have this huge disproportionate effect, in terms of setting trends of how much area burns every year.”

it’s important to understand the role that climate change has in igniting these fires. fire thrives on hot and dry atmospheres, and as the globe continues to grow hotter and drier, it becomes easier for fires to start and spread. this concept seems logical; however, there are detrimental cascading climate implications that scientists are grappling with, such as declining forest resilience, because of the destruction. coop pointed out some irony — scientists in the past have often used forest regrowth as an example of resilience in nature. 

“there’s kind of been this historical, let’s say, scientific paradigm, that a forest burns down a fire, and then it grows back … that sort of example, ecological scenario is… almost like the textbook study of resilience,” coop said. 

however, coop said, fires are growing more severe and may be beyond the capability of other species to adapt and respond to the increasing extremity. 

“there’s a lot of reason to think, ‘wow, these forests may not be able to withstand the kinds of changes that they’re experiencing’,” coop said.

other researchers studying the rebirth of forests also found similar grim outlooks for areas struck by severe wildfires. but even more alarming – there may be fewer trees that reroot in the scorched paths of wildfires, an implication that could further fuel climate change.  

retired firefighter turned scientist camille stevens-rumann was also drawn to the after effects of wildfires. as an assistant professor in the forest and rangeland stewardship department at colorado state university and assistant director for the colorado forest restoration institute, she studied forest resilience and authored the 2017 study, “evidence for declining forest resilience to wildfires under climate change.” her work surveyed several generations of forests’ regrowth and resilience using data from tree seedling presence and density. she discovered significant decreases in post-fire tree regeneration in the 21st century, which corresponded with higher annual moisture deficits than in previous generations. 

in other words, there are fewer opportunities for trees to survive in the post-fire environment, aligning with the research conducted by coop.

an important implication of declining resilience is that there will be fewer trees, stevens-rumann said. this fact has atmospheric consequences — less trees means more carbon in our atmosphere — as well as aesthetic consequences. 

“i think the big concern is that we all love trees, and we love them for a lot of reasons. you know, we love them for the carbon that they sequester, which can impact how much carbon is in the atmosphere,” said stevens-rumann. “we love them because they’re big and beautiful, and feel, you know, make us feel small sometimes. and they feel majestic.”

despite the seemingly inescapability of the wildfires stevens-rumann said we are actually in a fire deficit in the united states. 

“we haven’t allowed fires to burn, for the most part, for the last 100 years. and even today, when you see those big wildfires on the news and things like that, that’s only like 2% of the wildfires that start— the other 98% are effectively put out,” stevens-rumann explained. “we’re in a crisis, in part, because we try to stop them so much.”

a natural solution stevens-rumann suggested is to allow less intense, more manageable fires to burn across more acres instead of immediately putting them out. this practice might help the forests retain their resilience, similar to building stamina when exercising, which in turn could help forests rebound faster.

prescribed fire is another way fires can be allowed to burn in a controlled environment. prescribed fires are man-made fires that are created to make burning more manageable by reducing the fuels that might ignite fires later on. however, according to coop and stevens-rumann, these fires do come with a level of risk and limitation.  

“it’s a really big question like, what we should do to prepare for those from the community level up to that landscape management level? and what kinds of strategies are the most likely to protect us and protect the ecosystems and the watersheds that we depend on?” said coop. 

protecting and informing the community is an important driver of wildfire research and management. for the average person, experiencing a wildfire is a frightening experience, especially for visitors and new residents who are unfamiliar with the atmosphere and frequency of the fires. ally chadha, a rising junior at chapman university in orange, calif., evacuated last year when a wildfire burned within 15 minutes of her campus. 

“you could very clearly see smoke from all of the campus buildings,” chadha said. “i was back in my apartment building, and i could smell smoke coming in through the vents.”

when her parents urged her to evacuate, chadha, a connecticut native, escaped to nearby relatives where she sheltered for a few days. 

“it was definitely scary,” chadha said, although no one around her took it as seriously.

she said that there’s not a major sense of precaution around wildfires amongst her own circle, and that people tend to “follow the herd” when reacting to fires. 

“it feels kind of normal, almost. obviously, it’s not good to be smelling smoke through the vents, but there’s fires pretty regularly,” chadha said. “there’s not really much that i feel like people think they could do anyways.”

while the attitudes around wildfires in chadha’s circle have become normalized, coop and stevens-rumann are sounding the alarm as to why they are not to be taken lightly. scientists are continuing research to figure out the best ways to protect the community as well as what kinds of environments have stifled larger fires from happening. further solutions for protecting our communities are still in progress, but the scientists are racing the pace of climate change to discover the answers. 

“future extremes of wildfire are going to be far beyond anything we’ve seen so far,” coop said. “we need to really prepare ourselves.”

but when we arrived at the campsite, we couldn’t cook any of it. 

larimer county, where our campsite was located, had implemented a burn ban last summer to quell fire danger as wildfires blazed throughout the state and the greater southwest region, crushing the plans we had to gather around a bonfire for s’mores. unfortunately, my friends and i didn’t have the foresight to check the fire ban status before heading out, so we broke out the only thing we brought that didn’t need cooking – fruit salad – and ate in the dark. 

the 2018 national climate assessment reported that the ability of the southwest’s forests to provide for its ecosystems has declined in the past decades, in part due to human-induced climate change. sthe national climate assessment estimates that the area burned throughout the western united states between 1984 and 2015 is double what it would have been if human-caused climate change wasn’t in the picture. 

but this decades-long surge in forest fires isn’t just an inconvenience for college students looking to camp. it’s a dire public health problem. 

scientists are learning that even people living far from the forest fires themselves can still breathe in harmful particles that irritate the respiratory system and can lead to chronic lung disease. the colorado sun reported in august that microscopic particles, or pm 2.5 particles, continue to exert the most harmful effects of increased wildfires. 

a study authored by researchers at colorado state university and the colorado school of public health on birth outcomes in colorado between 2007 and 2015, found that exposure to pm 2.5 particles during pregnancy was associated with adverse birth outcomes like preterm births and decreased birth weights. the study found that each unit increase in exposure to pm 2.5 particles was associated with about a 13 percent increase in likelihood of a preterm birth. 

fort collins, where i was camping last summer, is home to the highest concentration of pm 2.5 particles in the state, according to the colorado sun. 

the culprit? greenhouse gas emissions. 

increased emissions lead to higher global temperatures, which in turn creates an environment for drier forests. as dead vegetation sits in the forest without being burned it becomes more flammable, making it more likely that it will be tinder for another, more violent, wildfire. this creates what the world resources institute calls a “climate feedback loop.” when the next fire does occur, it releases even more emissions into the atmosphere, trapping heat and enhancing the probability that the next burn is even more violent. 

in colorado, it’s not in-state fires that carry the highest concentrations of pm 2.5 – it’s fires burning hundreds of miles to the west. smoke traveling from forest fires in oregon and california make their way over the rockies and into the front range, creating harmful breathing conditions for residents, especially those with pre-existing respiratory issues. 

the good news is that there are steps governments can take to address this. 

the environmental defense fund, one of the leading environmental protection organizations globally, suggests investing in research of forests to determine how to best mitigate severe fires 

further, the edf lays out that the more governments invest in fire prevention, the less they have to pay to put fires out once they happen.

the united states congress passed a bill, known as the “fire funding fix,” in 2018 that allocated upwards of $2 billion per year to prevent forest fires. but governments still have a ways to go to create a thorough understanding of how to prevent wildfires. 

so without a bonfire to light up our campsite during our trip last summer, my friends and i piled into a hammock and stared up at the breathtaking views of the night sky, only visible from colorado’s mountains. 

i’m hopeful that next year––or at least in a few years from now––i’ll be able to light up a campfire and enjoy s’mores with my friends again. but there’s still a long way to go before colorado’s air isn’t a threat to the people who call the state home. 

—

editor’s note: check back each day during cop26 for more pieces in planet forward’s climate hits home series.

at the tree house the pines whisper during the summer and are hushed in the winter when they are covered in snow. the waterfalls rage below glistening peaks, and i get to explore it all. but two summers ago a forest fire came within forty yards of my beloved family cabin, and i saw before me the prospect of the place where all of my treasured family memories were made being burned to the ground.

increased rainfall in the winters and decreased rainfall in the summers create drier summers with reduced stream flow west of the cascades. drier and warmer summers mean drier forests. snowpack in the mountains is low and snowmelt will occur three to four weeks earlier. in fact data that observed stream flow each year in june for the past fifty years shows that in the washington cascade region, stream flow has reduced 4 to 15 percent.

all of these factors make forests in the pacific northwest increasingly susceptible to forest fires. beyond the destruction of aesthetic beauty and recreation areas, as these trees that have stored carbon for years are burned they release all of the stored carbon back into the atmosphere, contributing further to our climate problem. also lost is the ecological service these trees give us by cleaning air and water.

forests in this region will also begin to see greater invasion of the pine beetle. these huge beetles invade increasingly warmer, drier regions, burrow into trees, and kill them from their trunk to their tip, making for patches of dead, dry trees.  however, the beetles won’t last long because they can only survive within a specific temperature range, and the cascade forests will soon be too hot, even for the pine beetles. their presence in the forests will decrease by about 50% by around 2100.

unfortunately, there is not much we can do for our forests. thinning the surfaces and canopies of our forests could abate some of the fire’s fury, but the reality is that persistent warming will simply continue to threaten the forests.

northwest recreational junkies, beware: though seattle, my hometown, is thought to be an epicenter of environmental friendliness and home to many-a-tree-hugger, it is far from being immune to the impacts of climate change. the northwestern corner of the united states not only faces forest vulnerabilities, but also water resource, coastline, and agricultural impacts.

this affects you, the hiker who’s favorite forest will be infested with pine beetles; you, the spring skier with no good snow come march at mt. bachelor; you, the paddle-boarder off of alki beach who’s favorite place to coast through the waters will look very different a few years down the road; and me, one who, like the rest of us in the pacific northwest, delights in the beauty of the snowy mountains and lush nature that surrounds our region that is undergoing change.