W. Matt Jolly, Mark A. Cochrane, Patrick H. Freeborn, Zachary A. Holden, Timothy J. Brown, Grant J. Williamson & David M. J. S. Bowman. 2015. Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013. Nature Communications (6).

A new study published in _Nature Communications_ examined global changes in wildfire frequency and season length. The authors used three daily global climate datasets to measure fire weather season length and temporal and spatial distribution from 1979 to 2013. The study found that the duration of fire weather seasons has increased 18% across one quarter of the Earth's vegetated surface. The results also exhibited a doubling of global burnable area affected by long fire weather seasons. Specific to the United States, the study found that over the last several decades, the U.S. has witnessed a marked increase in large wildfire frequency and duration with the greatest increases observed in the temperate coniferous forests of the Northern Rocky Mountains.