Climate Change Is Raising Texas’ Already High Wildfire Risks
New York TimesFeb 29
Texas Wildfires Engulf 1M Acres
The Facts
The Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas has now engulfed over 1M acres, making it the largest wildfire in the state's history. Satellite images have shown it now spreading into Oklahoma.
Smokehouse Creek, which has burned over 400K acres in just Hemphill County and reportedly destroyed 115 miles (185 km) of powerlines, is the largest of three fires currently burning in the Texas panhandle.
The Spin
Narrative A
As climate change heats up the atmosphere, Texas has endured hotter and dryer summer and spring seasons, resulting in the wildfire season starting earlier and ending later. This has also caused a disproportionate amount of burned acreage in the Panhandle. This not only affects the environment we live in but has also raised Texans' homeowner's insurance by over 50%. The physical and economic damage from climate change cannot be overstated.
Narrative B
While wildfires have certainly gotten worse in recent years, part of the problem has been the government's decades-long policy of immediately extinguishing every fire everywhere. This practice is ill-advised because brush burning is often a natural way to rejuvenate grass and soil. Another reason fires have gained so much attention recently is that never before has America seen so many homes being built on the edges of forests. The government needs to take a step back and find new preventative solutions before more lives are lost.
Nerd narrative
There is a 50% chance that wildfires will destroy a total exceeding 10Mha of global tree cover in any year, by the end of 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.