Wildfires Expected To Scorch More Land Across America

Mismanagement, encroachment and yes, even a little climate change. What few realize is that according to the US Forest Service, the 304 million hectares of forest land covers 34 percent of the US’s land area. The US has about 8 percent of the world’s forests and when combined with Canada, about 17% of the world’s forest. We’ve grown in the percentage of forested land since large scale timber removal ended in the 1920s. Since 1990 or so, the percentage of forested lands has remained fairly consistent at 34%+-.

Forest fires ran rampant across the continent from prehistory until the 1800s. The peak of recorded forest fire activity was around 1926 in which something on the order of 55,000,000 acres burned. The largest “single” US fire is probably the “Great Oregon Fire” in 1845 where approximately 1,500,000 acres burned. In the last 20 years, fewer than 10,000,000 acres have burned in any single year. California alone amounts to almost 10% of that total annually (980,000 acres on average annually) because they refuse to do anything about controlling the fuels created by the poor land management (or ensuring their retention ponds are full).

You rarely see such large fires in the Southeast US because rednecks and the farmers realize it isn’t a good idea to not have controlled burns, not have precut fire breaks and to not bull doze clear breaks when a fire does flare up. The Table Rock fire, man caused, is something of an aberration as the land is controlled by the state of South Carolina which generally does a good job managing her wildlands. Almost no structures were damaged/destroyed. The Myrtle Beach fires were man caused and generally burned swampy areas that are difficult to manage or fight fires in. Very few structures were damaged or destroyed.