U.S. Bush administration's environmental irresponsibility causing spreading fires California

Edited by Traci Lawson

The U.S. Bush administration's lack of environmental responsibility has provides a context for an epic wave of fast-moving wildfires that has engulfed a massive swath of southern California. These fires have destroyed hundreds of homes as more than 250,000 people were told to evacuate from neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals.

Looking at a database of 1,166 forest wildfires from 1970 to 2003 in the western United States, researchers compared the number and potency of wildfires to spring and summer temperatures and the timing of snowmelts.

Wildfire season and potency increased "suddenly and dramatically" in the late 1980's, the scientists say.

"The increase in large wildfires appears to be another part of a chain of reactions to climate warming," said study co-author Dan Cayan, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Climate Research Division. "The recent ramp-up is likely, in part, caused by natural fluctuations, but evidence is mounting that human made industrial effects have been contributing to warmer winters and springs in recent decades."

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