Climate change doubled chance of weather conditions that led to record Quebec fires, researchers say

Climate change more than doubled the chances of the hot, dry weather that helped fuel the unprecedented wildfire season in eastern Canada that’s driven thousands from their homes and blanketed parts of the U.S. with choking smoke, according to an analysis released Tuesday. What’s more, human-caused climate change made the fire season in Quebec — from May through July — 50% more intense than it otherwise would have been and increased the likelihood of similarly severe fire seasons at least sevenfold, researchers said. Peter Reich, a forest ecologist who wasn’t involved in the analysis, said he was glad researchers didn’t try to prove climate change caused the fires, but instead looked at the probability that the conditions that led to this year’s fire season would have occurred with or without climate change. Although the analysis did a good job of assessing extreme fire weather, it didn’t capture how broadly it affected the entire country, especially in the arid West, which would show an even stronger connection to climate change, said Mike Flannigan, a professor for wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. Reich said the findings likely would apply across the planet because hotter temperatures increase the drying power of the air, and climate change makes fire vulnerability, severity and risk much higher by increasing the flammability of the materials and weather conditions that will produce and carry fire at the same time.