2026-08-08T10:30:30.849Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/08/politics/wildfires-climate-crisis-prevention
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如今，破坏性野火已成为美国大部分地区的常态，美国人正在适应变暖的地球，而愈发极端的天气也逐渐变得司空见惯。
今年夏天，华盛顿州斯波坎市的社区遭到严重破坏，数万人被迫疏散，这一事件最为引人注目。但野火影响范围覆盖了美国西部大部分地区，犹他州和科罗拉多州等州的房屋被夷为平地，更不必说欧洲令人触目惊心的火灾画面，以及加拿大山火产生的烟雾涌入美国境内。
曾将气候变化称为“骗局”的唐纳德·特朗普总统，已带领美国退出应对气候变化的国际协议，并大幅削减国内相关应对举措。他上月甚至质疑加拿大是否应为“毒害”美国空气的烟雾向美国支付赔偿，仿佛加拿大能够控制气流或山火，就像美国也做不到一样。
据《纽约时报》报道，特朗普政府的环境保护局几乎已解散一个研究烟雾对人类健康影响的办公室。
近年来，得克萨斯州、田纳西州、佛罗里达州、加利福尼亚州和夏威夷州等多个州都发生了房屋被毁、民众流离失所的野火事件。美国西部的林地每年都有野火肆虐。
特朗普政府削减了美国国家海洋和大气管理局（NOAA）的预算，停止了对这些灾难及其他与气候相关的气象事件损失的追踪，这使得评估相关成本变得更加困难——尽管一家非营利组织试图填补这一空白。特朗普第二任期初期，洛杉矶发生的野火造成的损失估计达630亿美元。
特朗普还未经国会批准和拨款，着手重组美国野外消防员部署的零散机构，成立新的美国野外消防局。这一终极目标或许值得肯定，但国会要求他放缓步伐，对该问题展开研究，并拒绝按照特朗普政府的设想为该机构提供资金。
暂且不论华盛顿的这些分歧，野火仍在持续蔓延。
我与CNN首席气象学家、该网络气候危机板块负责人布兰登·米勒就今年的野火情况、野火整体态势、未来趋势以及社区可采取的应对措施进行了交谈。以下是经过编辑的对话内容。
沃尔夫： 今年夏天的重大新闻来自斯波坎、西班牙和法国。与以往相比，今年的火灾季情况如何？
米勒： 放眼望去，各地的火灾情况都高于平均水平。截至8月初，美国全境烧毁的面积比正常水平高出约50%，这是相较于过去10年的平均水平而言。过去10年的火灾情况本就高于正常水平。若与几十年前相比，仅基准烧毁面积就可能增加了50%。我们在烧毁面积方面的数值一直在持续攀升。
沃尔夫： 美国的野火与全球其他地区的野火相比情况如何？
米勒： 这绝非美国独有的问题，其他地区的情况甚至更糟。比如加拿大，今年的烧毁面积大幅高于平均水平，且过去四年的烧毁面积均位列该国历史前四。如今，野火已是每年都会发生的常态。
我在CNN报道全球天气已有20年，每年欧洲都有地方发生火灾，且规模比以往更大。去年是希腊和意大利，今年则是西班牙、法国和英国。欧洲几乎所有地区每年夏天都在打破气温纪录。
目前在美国，俄勒冈州和华盛顿州的大型野火数量位居全国之首。加利福尼亚州尚未出现这种情况，但未来完全有可能改变。很多时候，加利福尼亚州和科罗拉多州都是火灾重灾区。具体受灾地区每年都会变化，但整体烧毁面积、火灾总数等指标都在持续上升。
沃尔夫： 加州今年的情况是否与准备工作有关，或者说他们只是运气好？
米勒： 未必是运气好。加州的火灾季通常来得更晚，秋季才会迎来更多强风暴，也就是大家熟知的圣安娜风。强风事件会大幅干燥易燃物。加州夏季几乎不会降雨，因此到了秋季，各类可燃物才会彻底干透，强风来袭时就会爆发大规模野火。
俄勒冈州和华盛顿州通常不会如此干燥炎热。这些地区，尤其是太平洋沿岸地带，大多没有安装空调。但当连续多日出现90华氏度（约32摄氏度）乃至100华氏度（约38摄氏度）的高温时，情况就与以往截然不同了。当气温纪录被打破时，火灾发生的概率就会非常高。
沃尔夫： 斯波坎的火灾据称是纵火犯所为。如果属实，我们是否可以将其与气候变化联系起来？
米勒： 可以说既是也不是。人类一直都在引发火灾，无论是故意纵火，还是大多数时候的意外失火——比如营火引燃植被，或是在干燥草地上启动车辆都可能引发野火。人类引发火灾的比例和自然起火的比例近年来并未发生太大变化。如果说气候变化导致了斯波坎的火灾，那绝对是错误的。
但气候变化是否为这场火灾的发生创造了条件？答案是肯定的。
沃尔夫： 哪些因素加剧了野火风险，气候变化又是如何让这些风险成倍增加的？
米勒： 道理其实很简单。物体越干燥，就越容易燃烧；温度越高，物体就越干燥。气候变化正在改变大气的“干燥能力”，导致蒸发速度加快，水位下降。美国西部的水库水位屡创新低，米德湖和鲍威尔湖便是如此。气候变化还会从树木、灌木和森林中抽取水分，使其更易燃烧。
但凡事都有另一面：如果所有地区持续不断地变得越来越干燥，一些地方最终会变成沙漠，久而久之燃烧的概率反而会降低。
但问题在于我们正在经历的“天气极端波动”，这种情况在加州尤为明显：某一年降水充沛，下一年却极度干旱。气候自然波动现象，如厄尔尼诺和拉尼娜，可能会带来多雨年份。但具有讽刺意味的是，气候变化也会让潮湿天气变得更潮湿——因为气候变暖后，暖空气能容纳更多水汽。因此可能会出现植被异常繁茂的年份，而到了下一年，若遭遇有记录以来最热最干燥的天气，哪怕不懂气候学也能预料到，这一年的火灾情况会极为严重。我们现在看到的就是这种情况，欧洲也是如此：去年冬季降水充沛，今年夏季气温则大幅突破历史纪录，为严重火灾埋下了隐患。
沃尔夫： 西海岸的干燥和火灾风险不难理解，但最近夏威夷和今年早些时候佛罗里达州都发生了严重火灾。有没有什么地方完全不会受到野火影响？
米勒： 我认为没有哪个地方能完全免疫。只要有森林和野生植被的地方，就有发生火灾的可能。美国东南部几年前的加特林堡大火就曾让很多人意识到，野火并非只有西海岸才会遇到的问题。
五大湖地区和美国东北部内陆地区的火灾发生率可能最低。佛罗里达州的情况常常出乎人们意料：这里降雨充沛，但只要降雨暂停哪怕很短一段时间，高温就会让地表迅速干透。此外，佛罗里达州的闪电密度居全国之首，而闪电是引发火灾的头号原因之一。只要连续两周不下雨且天气炎热，再伴随一场雷暴，就能引燃数十处野火。
沃尔夫： 斯波坎火灾之所以破坏力极强，是因为火势蔓延到了已开发的社区。如今这种情况在美国各地都有发生。有没有记录显示野火与人类居住区的交汇情况在增加？原因是什么？
米勒： 这其实是一个研究热点领域，这种现象被称为“野地-城市交界带”。仅在美国，就有数百万人居住在被归类为该交界带的区域。随着城市扩张，我们不断侵占原本的野地和森林。这些地方很适合居住，就像尽管沿海地区极易遭受飓风袭击，但依然是人们向往的居住地一样。但这样一来，人类居住区就直接与自然区域接壤，而自然本就会发生火灾。
森林的自然燃烧过程其实是有益的，这也是我们推行计划烧除以维持森林健康的原因。这种做法可以保持森林健康，清理过剩植被。但在野地-城市交界带，森林往往没有得到应有的妥善维护，因为计划烧除就是点火，人们不喜欢在夏日最美的时光里充满烟雾。森林管理一直面临这种公众阻力。
此外，只有在火灾风险较低、森林湿度较高的日子里才能进行计划烧除。但这样的天气条件，在很多年份里都少之又少。因此计划烧除的实施难度越来越大，而气候变化也让情况愈发不利。这或许是各国政府需要加大力度或调整方式加以解决的问题。
沃尔夫： 除此之外，还有哪些预防措施？各地目前都在采取哪些行动？
米勒： 其中很多工作可以从开发规划层面进行管理——建造更符合防火标准的房屋，设置天然防火带。减少使用易燃材料，庭院景观选择不易燃烧的植物。 homeowners本身就能在自家和社区层面采取很多措施，最大限度提升房屋和街区在火灾中的生存概率。
沃尔夫： 什么是防火带？是不是不要把房子建得太靠近？
米勒： 最关键的一点就是不要让房屋直接毗邻森林，要设置天然的防火间隔。针对野地-城市交界带，研究人员正在确定具体需要留出多大的间隔、在这些区域可以建造什么。因为一旦街区中有一栋房屋起火，只要有风，火势就会迅速蔓延至周边所有房屋。风会高效地携带燃烧的余烬，只要有几支余烬落在屋顶上，很快就会引发整栋房屋起火。
气候科学家和消防员的观点
沃尔夫： 气候科学早就预测野火会越来越多、越来越猛烈，如今这一切正在发生。气候科学家认为未来会怎样？
米勒： 情况会愈演愈烈。烧毁面积会持续增加，因为火灾季正在延长。火灾开始得更早，结束得更晚。以加拿大为例，过去通常要到6月或7月才会发生山火，因为当地降雪直到很晚才会融化，需要数月时间才能彻底干燥升温。但现在情况已经改变：很多年份的降雪量减少，融化速度更快，植被提前暴露出来，生长季提前，干燥期也随之提前。而冬季降雪和降雨的到来时间却被推迟，气温回升得更早。在加拿大、欧洲、俄罗斯等高纬度地区，我们已经看到了最严重、最频繁的火灾活动，预计这种趋势还将持续下去。
近年来我与很多野外消防员交流过，他们大多属于保守派，通常不会谈论环境或气候变化这类话题。但他们都亲眼见证了情况的变化，最常提到的就是夜间灭火的时机已经消失。
过去，夜间是他们灭火的黄金时段。哪怕火势最凶猛，白天可能需要暂时撤退，但到了晚上就能全力进攻，争取在次日高温和午后大风来临前控制住火势。但如今这种情况已经一去不复返了。就像火灾季变成了火灾年，现在的火灾日也变成了24小时全天候。消防员控制火势的时间和能力都越来越少，这也是为什么有时火势会在夜间呈指数级蔓延。
Trump dismisses climate change. But he can’t deny that wildfires are going to get worse
2026-08-08T10:30:30.849Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/08/politics/wildfires-climate-crisis-prevention
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
Destructive wildfires are part of life in much of the US now, as Americans adapt to the warming planet and its more intense weather starts to feel common.
This summer, Spokane, Washington, most notably saw neighborhoods decimated and tens of thousands face evacuation. But wildfires affected much of the Western US, leveling homes in Utah and Colorado, among other states, to say nothing of the frightening pictures out of Europe and the smoke that has poured into the US from Canada.
President Donald Trump, who has described climate change as a “hoax,” has withdrawn the US from international efforts to address the issue and slashed domestic efforts to counter it, wondered last month if Canada should pay the US damages for smoke that has “poisoned” US air, as if Canada could control either the airflow or the fires any more than the US.
His EPA has all but dismantled an office that was researching the effects of smoke on humans, according to the New York Times.
In recent years, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, California and Hawaii, among other states, have seen homes destroyed and lives uprooted. Fires rage each year in forestland across the West.
It will be harder to assess the cost of these disasters, along with other climate-related weather events, after Trump’s administration stopped tracking them as a result of cuts at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — although a nonprofit has tried to fill the gap. Wildfires in Los Angeles early in Trump’s second term cost an estimated $63 billion.
Trump has also moved, without approval or funding from Congress, to completely reorganize the sprawling patchwork of agencies that deploy wildland firefighters in US by creating the new US Wildland Firefighting Service. That may be a worthy ultimate goal, but Congress wants him to slow down and study the issue, and has refused to fund the agency as Trump’s administration envisions it.
Those DC disagreements aside, wildfires continue to spread.
I talked to Brandon Miller, CNN’s lead meteorologist and the network’s climate crisis beat leader about this year’s fires, fires in general, what to expect in the future and what communities can do.
Our edited conversation is below.
WOLF: The big headlines this summer have been from Spokane, Spain, and France. How is this fire season compared to others so far?
MILLER: It’s above average pretty much everywhere we look. We’re about 50% above normal for the amount of area that has burned across the US up to early August. That’s 50% above normal over the last 10 years. The last 10 years has already been above normal.
If you compare that to a couple of decades ago, that’s already increased by probably 50%, just the baseline. So we just continue to march ever upward when it comes to the amount of area burned.
WOLF: How do the US fires compare to worldwide fires?
MILLER: It’s certainly not exclusive to the US and it’s even worse in other locations, places like Canada that are above average this year by a good margin and the last four years are each of their top four years as far as burned areas. This is just an annual thing now.
I’ve been covering global weather here at CNN for 20 years, and every year somewhere in Europe is burning, and it’s and it’s more than we’ve seen before. Last year it was Greece and Italy. This year, it’s Spain, it’s France, it’s the UK. Pretty much everywhere in Europe is setting temperature records each summer.
Here in the US right now, Oregon and Washington lead the lead the nation in the number of large fires. California isn’t yet, but there’s plenty of time for that to change. Many years, California and Colorado are leading. The exact locations may change from year to year, but the overall area burns, the overall number of fires, all those things continue to march upwards.
WOLF: Is there something about preparation or preparedness in California that was different this year so far, or have they just been lucky?
MILLER: Not necessarily lucky. Their fire season tends to come later in the year. Into autumn is when they get more of those big windstorms, those Santa Anas that you’ve probably heard of. Strong wind events can really dry out those fuels. They don’t really get rain there over the summer. and so that’s when things really start to dry out. By the time the winds arrive in the fall, that’s when they see a lot of their big fires. Oregon and Washington aren’t typically areas that get as dry and hot. A lot of those places, especially there along the Pacific, don’t even have air conditioning. But when they’re having days and days of 90- and 100-degree temperatures, that’s indicative of something way different than what used to be. When you see those temperature records, it is very likely fire is to follow.
WOLF: The Spokane Fire was allegedly set by an arsonist. If that’s the case, is it appropriate for us to attribute climate change to that in any way?
MILLER: Yes and no. People have always caused fires, whether purposefully or, most of the time, it’s an accident. A campfire could ignite. Starting your car on dry grass can ignite a wildfire. Humans have always caused fires, and the percentage of human versus natural causes hasn’t really changed much in recent years. To say that climate change caused the Spokane fires — no, absolutely that would be an incorrect thing to say.
But did it prime the area to burn in the way that it did? Absolutely.
WOLF: What are the ingredients that make for increased wildfire risk and why are they turbocharged by climate change?
MILLER: It’s not so difficult to think about. The drier something is, the more likely it is to burn. The hotter something is, the drier it gets. Climate change is changing the atmosphere’s thirst. It’s causing evaporation to happen more quickly, and that lowers water levels. In the western reservoirs we’re seeing record lows at Lake Mead and Lake Powell. It also is removing water from trees, from brush, from forests, and that makes them more likely to burn.
The flip side of that is, if everything just got drier and drier continuously, some of these areas would become deserts and after a long time, wouldn’t burn so much.
But the problem is this weather whiplash that we see — and we see this a lot with California, where they’ll go from a really wet year to a really dry year. So you get a really wet year, maybe some of the climate patterns that are naturally occurring, El Niño and La Niña. Ironically, climate change also makes wet patterns wetter because warmer air, as the climate warms, can hold more water in it. So you might get a very lush year that grows a lot of vegetation, and then when the next year comes and it’s the hottest and driest on record, it doesn’t take a degree in climatology to figure out that’s going to be a really bad burn year. That’s what we’re seeing. That’s what’s happened in Europe as well. They had a very wet winter, and this summer has been the hottest on record by a good margin. And so that’s setting the table for a really bad fire situation.
WOLF: Dryness and fire danger on the West Coast makes sense. But there were fires in Hawaii recently. Earlier this year, there were bad fires in Florida. Is there anywhere that’s immune from this?
MILLER: I wouldn’t say anywhere is immune. Certainly, anywhere that has forests and wildland is subject to those burning. Here in the Southeast, we had Gatlinburg a few years back, where there was really bad fire. That opened a lot of people’s eyes to, this isn’t just a West Coast problem.
The Great Lakes and some of the interior Northeast probably sees the lowest incidents. Florida surprises a lot of people because they get so much rain, but when the rain shuts off, even for just a short amount of time, it’s so hot that things dry out very quickly. They also have the most lightning per square mile of anywhere in the country. Lightning is one of the No. 1 causes of fires. Just a couple weeks of no rain and really hot temperatures followed by a thunderstorm in Florida can ignite dozens of fires.
WOLF: What made the Spokane Fire so destructive is that it entered developed communities. That’s happened across the country now. Is there a documented increase in this crossover between wildfires and civilization? What is causing it?
MILLER: It’s actually a very active area of research. It’s known as the “wildland-urban interface,” and there are millions of people in the US alone that live in what would be classified as a wildland-urban interface. As we’ve built out cities, we are infringing upon what was before wildlands or forests. These are desirable places to live. Just like living on the coast, even though it’s very vulnerable to hurricanes, is a desirable place to live for obvious reasons. But what that does is it butts up into nature, and nature naturally burns.
The natural burning process of forests is actually a good thing, which is why we have prescribed burns and things that are designed to make the forest healthy. It keeps the forest healthy and clears it of that growth. The other thing with the wildland urban interface — those forests aren’t necessarily maintained as well as they could have or should have been, because those prescribed burns are burns. They’re fires. People don’t like those fires. They don’t want to have some of their nicest days the summertime full of smoke. Forest management runs against that all the time.
Also, you can’t do a prescribed burn if the conditions are dangerous. They want a day with low fire danger, with a lot of moisture in the forests. But those days, a lot of years, just aren’t very plentiful. So it’s getting harder. Climate change is working against that as well. That may be something governments are going to have to do more of or do differently.
WOLF: What else do they need to be doing, and what are they doing to address this as in terms of prevention?
MILLER: A lot of that, you know, can be managed on the development side — making houses in a more fire-sustainable way that going to give natural fire breaks. Not having as flammable materials, not having landscaping in your yard that that is vulnerable to fire. There’s a lot of things that homeowners themselves can do, just at an extremely local level to maximize their home or their neighborhood’s chances to survive a fire.
WOLF: What’s a fire break? Not putting houses right next to each other?
MILLER: Don’t put houses right next to that forest, really, is the thing. You want to have that natural break. With the wildland urban interface, they’re trying to figure out exactly how much needs to be there, what they can put in those locations, because once one house burns in a in a neighborhood, if there’s any wind at all, it’s going to go from house to house to house to house very quickly. The wind carries those embers extremely efficiently, and just a couple of those landing on a roof can quickly lead to a house burning.
What climate scientists and firefighters are saying
WOLF: Climate science predicted there would be more and more intense fires. That is happening. What do climate scientists think will happen next?
MILLER: More of this exactly. More of the burned area increasing. It’s because the fire season is increasing. It’s starting earlier and it lasts longer. If you look back at Canada, for instance, it never really started burning there until June or or July, because there was still snow on the ground until quite late. It took months to really dry out and heat up. But now it’s happening on both ends. You get less snow in a lot of years, so it melts quicker, and that exposes that vegetation. It’s growing sooner, and then drying out sooner, and then it’s taking longer for the snow to come back, and the rains and the cooler temperatures. Especially in some of those higher-latitude areas — Canada, Europe, Russia — where we’ve seen the worst and the most fire activity, we do expect that trend to continue.
I’ve talked to a lot of wildland firefighters in recent years, and the one thing they talk about so much — those firefighters tend to be a fairly conservative bunch, not ones that you would typically expect to talk about environmental, climate change, things like that. But they have no doubt, because they’ve seen it in with their own eyes how things have changed, and the thing they point to the most is nighttime recovery.
Nighttime was always their time to fight these fires. Even the most aggressive fires, they might have to come back, retreat a little bit during the day, but at night they would be able to really attack these fires and hopefully get them to a good place ahead of the next day when it would get hot and the winds would pick up in the afternoon. It basically doesn’t happen anymore. Just like the fire season has grown to a fire year, the fire day is now 24 hours. There’s less time or ability to really gain ground on these fires, and that’s why sometimes they can grow so exponentially, even in the overnight hours.