![]() ![]() “Climate change in many parts of the world is increasing vegetation dryness, in large part because temperatures are hotter,” Fleishman said. “If you have all of those conditions at the same time, it’s often what the National Weather Service calls ‘red flag conditions,’” said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University. Strong winds, combined with low humidity and an abundance of dry vegetation that burns easily, can increase the danger of wildfire, even on a tropical island like Maui. “The risk for destructive fires could increase in the future if flash droughts become more common, as some studies have indicated.” If an area falls into drought quickly, that means there is a longer window of time for fires to occur,” Otkin said. “The most destructive fires usually occur during drought. ![]() “It’s all related to water in some ways.” “Plants are getting really, really dry,” Lakshmi said. Flash droughts occur when the rain stops and it gets so hot that the atmosphere literally sucks moisture out of the ground and plants, making them more likely to catch fire. A 2016 flash drought was connected to unusual wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, he said.Įven in the past week there’s been “a quick acceleration” of that drought, said University of Virginia hydrologist Venkat Lakshmi. Otkin co-authored an April study that shows that flash droughts are becoming more common as Earth warms by human-caused climate change. Maui experienced a two-category increase in drought severity in just three weeks from May to June, with that rapid intensification fitting the definition of a flash drought, said Jason Otkin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. ![]()
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