Wildfire smoke blanketing this coastal city and much of the West is bringing an ominous reminder that the reach of destructive fires is growing.
Climate scientists study how global warming increases the odds of wildfire. People living through it are confronting a more immediate question: where is truly safe anymore?
Wildfires intensified by climate change are like an unforgiving spotlight sweeping across the world. No one really knows where it will stop next.
Right now, that spotlight is on Spokane, Washington, where a historic wildfire has destroyed neighborhoods and remains uncontrolled. Fires are also burning in the Bordeaux region in France, outside Madrid and in British Columbia.
“I don’t think we’ve had one single year in the past decade where there hasn’t been at least one catastrophic fire event of some magnitude that looks just like this,” said climate scientist Daniel Swain, in a virtual presentation Monday showing Spokane neighborhoods burned to the ground.
Catastrophic fires have repeatedly destroyed populated communities: Fort McMurray, Alberta (2016); Santa Rosa, California (2017); Paradise, California (2018); Australia’s “Black Summer” (2019-20); Oregon Labor Day fires that reached the edge of Portland (2020); Denver suburbs of Louisville and Superior, Colorado (2021); Lahaina, Hawaii (2023); Pacific Palisades, California (2025).
(Amy Harder – Axios)
The Global Eye is in partnership with SIOI
