The Goldilocks Conditions for Wildfires

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By Sarah Derouin, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: Kampf et al. studied relationships between fire, fuel, and climate in temperate regions around the world, focusing specifically on western North America, western and central Europe, and southwestern South America. ...The researchers found that over the 20-year study period and across all three regions, fires burned smaller areas of land in zones with either very dry climates or very wet climates compared with zones of intermediate aridity. They suggest that this trend is explained by the lack of vegetation sufficient to fuel widespread fires in dry zones and, in wet zones, by weather conditions that dampen the likelihood of fires....

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