The biggest fire now burning in the U.S. can be seen raging from space.
It’s now peak fire season in Arizona, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-16 weather satellite captured three significant fires on June 16. The most prominent blaze is the middle of the three wildfires seen below, called the Bush Fire. It’s burned over 89,000 acres in Tonto National Forest and has little containment (as of Wednesday morning).
The Southwest is ripe for wildfires in June and much of July because this time of year invites ideal fire conditions: It’s hot, there’s little rain, and when the winds pick up all you need is a spark. These days, humans are around to regularly provide those sparks, though often by accident (the U.S. Forest Service describes the Bush Fire as “human caused”).
Today, people may cause about 95 percent of fires globally, but when these blazes do start, they’re burning in a climate that’s significantly warmer than it was a century ago. Climate change enhances wildfires, particularly in the western U.S. Fire researchers have found that the warming Western U.S. climate is responsible for doubling the amount of land burned in the West since 1984. (Other human impacts can help modern fires grow bigger too, specifically gross forest mismanagement and fire prone invasive plant species).
Wildfires in the U.S. are now burning for weeks longer than they were in the 1970s, and they’re burning nearly twice as much land than they were in the 1990s.
But fires don’t need to be colossal to be deadly. Arizona experienced tragedy in June 2013 during the Yarnell Hill Fire, which burned 8,400 acres but took 19 firefighter lives.
