Fire weather has increased in Portland in the last 50 years
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Fire weather days in the Portland area increased by 2.7 days annually on average between 1973 and 2022, per an analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit climate science research organization, Axios' Andrew Freedman and Kavya Beheraj report.
The big picture: The report found that wildfire seasons are getting longer and more intense, especially along the West Coast.
Of note: The report defines fire weather days as having particular combinations of low humidity, high temperatures and strong winds.
Why it matters: The trend in fire weather days is tied to human-caused climate change, Climate Central says. This is because climate change is causing higher temperatures and drier conditions in many areas, which can lead to more frequent and larger fires.
Flashback: The Portland area saw a high number of fire weather days in 2020 and 2021 — 8.3 and 13 days, respectively.
- The Labor Day wildfires in 2020, including Lionshead and Riverside, burned nearly 1 million acres, according to a report from the Oregon Forest Resource Initiative.
- Hot, dry weather contributed to a rather long fire season in 2021; more than 1,000 wildfires that year were caused by lightning.
- In 1987, the Portland area saw an average of 12.7 fire weather days, per Climate Central data. That year, a series of wildfires burning in southern Oregon and northern California made up the size of Rhode Island.