According to the National Interagency Coordination Center’s latest situation report, nearly 40 major fires are still burning across the United States, but the report notes that more than half “are being managed with a strategy other than full suppression.” Generally, such fires are on federal or state land and the agencies are allowing the fires to burn while taking care that they don’t damage structures or trespass onto private property. In most parts of the country, the 2021 fire season is over.
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Despite shrill reports, 2021 was an ordinary fire year, burning about 94 percent as many acres as the previous 10-year average. Based on situation report archives, fires have burned well over the average number of acres in northern California, the northern Rockies, and the East, well under the average in Alaska, the central Rockies, the Great Basin, and the South, and about the average in the Pacific Northwest, Southern California, and the Southwest. Continue reading
