"Everything I say today may not be correct, but it's all supported by data." Just a great lecture by @peedublya on increasing western US wildfire activity. Recordbreaking conditions: in early September the North Complex fire was growing by 1 football field per *two seconds*

Summer 2010 was exceptionally hot; daily temperature records set across the west in August and continued into September...wildfires have been increasing for 40 years at least

...but is this a bad thing? Good question to pose. [Spoiler: yes.]

Federal fire suppression costs have increased more or less linearly with burned area. This is unsustainable. Why haven't we been more successful? A bunch of reasons:

Burned areas have increased mostly due to FOREST fires (+889%), not non-forest (+182%) fires.

For the last 100+ years western forests have built up a 'fire deficit' - they're artificially dense. This "loads the dice". But this is probably less important than warmer, drier conditions from climate change...

I'm sorry @peedublya can't help myself: "its" not "it's".

Fuels have gotten dryer over the last 40 years. Ugh, this thread is going to get depressing.