Dozens of other fires broke out in Georgia and West North Carolina, which Hurricane Helene Hurricane. According to Virginia, Iglesias, which studies in some areas that fallen trees can act like fuel and promote fire spread in short- and long-term perspective, which examines the impact of climate variability on socio-environmental systems at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“After a hurricane, many dead trees have fallen apart, and this allows sunlight to reach the ground,” said Iglesias. “And thanks to this biomass is easier to dry by promoting fire if there is ignition. It is in the short period. Another consequence of these fires is that they are a problem of access to firefighters. There are many roads blocking logs. “
It happened last week in Polk in North Carolina, where firefighters fought for navigation between the fallen trees and contain almost 500 acres of fire in the area, Blue Ridge Public Radio Reports. These fallen trees can be the nuisance of the fire over the years after the hurricane, especially in the southeast, where dried pine needles are highly flammable.
For example, in 2018, Hurricane Michael decimated about 1.3 million acres of Longleaf pine habitats in Florida, which Then he dried and fueled Bertha Swamp Road in 2022 was burned by over 33,000 acres.
Some fire brigades experts are also afraid that additional sunlight in the landscape can cause plant growth such as rhododendron and Mountain Laurel in southern Appalas, which burning intensively if it lights up.
“And now we have full sunlight in those areas that have not previously received full sunlight,” Gary C. Wood, a retired forest service employee of North Carolina, who now coordinates fire management strategies for the south -eastern region of firefighters of firefighters Wildland, Post and Courier said. “That things can really increase in terms of growth, and this will have a potential impact from the point of view of a firefighter.”
Fighting fire with fire
While wide studies clearly show that climate change fueling more intense west fires, scientists are still distributing a direct climate connection for the flame in the southeast. But some studies show that warming sets the conditions in which fires develop throughout the region.
“It is expected that drought will become more intense and more frequent in the southeast and many other areas of the country due to climate change,” said Iglesias. According to 2024 study.
To fight this, forest managers in this region often planned, contained fires known as prescribed burns that assist remove desiccated plants before they can drive larger hells. However, there are several blockages of roads of this strategy. Over 50 percent of 751 million acres of forest land in the USA is private property, and these owners decide to manage their land. This means that government agencies are required to obtain a permit from home owners before cleaning fallen trees after a storm or permission for recommended burns on their land. Some groups grow pressure to assist owners of home in North Carolina in the adoption of this fire control strategy, GRIST reports.
Another hook is that climate change can reduce the number of days on which land managers can practice rewritten combustion in the south -east, in accordance with 2024 study. The vegetation must be desiccated enough to featherlight and burn, but temperatures and winds should be moderately low to prevent the fire from getting out of control – conditions that become less predictable as the global temperature increases. Like fires, prescribed burns can also release air pollution, which can negatively affect air quality. My colleague Lee HedgePeth It covered this problemwhich is currently happening in Birmingham, Alabama.
At the same time, the Trump administration Place funds and freeze employment on programs that support the extinguishing of Wildland fires Experts say that in recent weeks, leaving huge swaths of the country, they have not prepared to take huge fires.