Wildfires are Getting Worse: Our Policies Need to Catch Up
Across the American West, like in the states of California, wildfire seasons aren’t just getting longer — they are becoming deadlier, more destructive, and far more expensive. In the past two decades alone, the United States has seen an escalation in both the size and intensity of wildfires, with the most recent and most devastating wildfire being the Palisades and Hurst fires, displacing thousands of residents and wiping whole communities off the map. The root causes are no mystery — they stem from a century of fire suppression policy, unprecedented fuel accumulation, and the accelerating rate and impact of climate change effects.