AS DROUGHT CONDITIONS worsened this fall, more acres burned in wildfires in October and November of this year across Massachusetts than have burned in the past two years combined.
Over 3,654 acres have burned in just those two months as of the end of last week. So far during the entirety of this year, over 4,262 acres have burned in 1,241 fires. In contrast, 1,788 acres burned in all of 2022 and 1,318 acres burned in 2023. The acreage burned has been trending up after 2019, which was an unusually wet year.
So far, 2024 “sticks out like a sore thumb,” said David Celino, chief fire warden at the Department of Conservation and Recreation. The wildfires raging are unprecedented not just because of how rapidly they spread, Celino said, but also because this scale of wildfires is uncommon during the later fall months. Fire season in Massachusetts, said Celino, is traditionally in the spring.
“There has been an unusually warm pattern for us this fall and that is one of the main reasons that is driving the fire occurrence,” said Celino. “When you look on the national level, we don’t even really use the term ‘fire season’ anymore. We use the term fire year because somewhere in the lower 48 states, there is a fire issue going on all year long.”
Many factors have led to this unusual wildfire year, he added. The drought dries out the trees and the vegetation as there is less moisture in general. Warmer, bright, sunny days with low humidity can also cause the vegetation to become drier as water evaporates from the soil and the plants into the air. The drier the vegetation is, the more likely it is to burn.
2024 has been a record-breakingly warm year with the global average temperature from January to September consistently hitting the warmest temperatures ever measured. The past decade has seen the warmest temperatures and ocean heat rises ever recorded. In Massachusetts, there are more warmer days late into the fall and winter months.
“This is a direct impact of climate change,” said Katharine Lange, the policy director at Massachusetts River Alliance. “The drought makes things so much more dry that the fires are so much more likely to happen. This is likely to continue happening at this rate or a higher rate. It will be more severe and more frequent.”
The wildfires are severe enough that they even burn up to a foot underground which can permanently change the texture of the soil and make it harder for plants to grow back in that same area.
“Fires burning six inches, a foot, or even more underground can be extremely difficult to extinguish or contain because they will continue to ignite falling leaves and allow fire to escape the perimeter,” said Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the Department of Fire Services. “Dead and burning trees already pose a serious hazard to firefighters because they can fall over without warning, but a burned-out root system makes this even more likely.”
The fires have generally burned through wildlands and haven’t burned down any homes or other structures. But there have been close calls.
There was a brush fire in a wooded area on the UMass Amherst campus near the student dorms which spanned approximately 1.2 acres and spread in six minutes. Fire crews put it out within a couple of hours.
A wildfire in Great Barrington – named the Butternut Fire – has been going since November 18 and has burned 1,388 acres. The fire made its way over a ridge in the East Mountain down to Sheffield where it came near a family’s house. Fire crews stopped it only 75 yards away from the property.
Wark said that local fire stations were frequently overwhelmed by the extraordinarily busy season and that most fire departments had major fires to deal with. There is a program in the state called the Massachusetts’ Statewide Fire Mobilization Plan which brings in firefighters from around the state when the resources of a local fire department are exhausted. The program was activated 15 times from late October to late November. For example, firefighters from Stoughton went to assist fire crews in Middleton. However, most fire departments were tied up fighting their own fires which meant that fire departments and fire crews were stretched thin.
“It takes a lot of manpower,” Celino said. “It takes a lot of time and effort. So we’re worried about the stress on the local capacity and the firefighting capacity across the state.”
The ongoing drought poses further challenges for firefighters because the water supply for putting out the fires is limited. Fire crews also rely on natural barriers to stop fires as they spread, but in a drought like this one, streams and wetlands can be dried out as well, further allowing the fires to spread.
The combined drought and wildfires can have severe impacts on trees, plants, and entire ecosystems.
“A lot of the trees are under stress and going through drought is particularly difficult for trees,” said Emily Boss, the executive director of the Massachusetts Woodlands Institute. “They really depend on water and this particular fall has been very straining. It’s stressful for our trees. And it’s more of a fire risk and unfortunately, this is the trend that is most likely to continue.”
Boss said that as temperatures continue to rise many trees in Massachusetts will die more frequently. Changing weather patterns can enable different pests and pathogens to kill off trees as well. That could mean that the tree species in the state’s forests might change entirely and favor trees that do better in warmer temperatures, according to Boss
Lange emphasized that the underlying issue for the wildfires is the drought which has other impacts on the ecosystem as well.
“I know we’re focusing on fires and that’s obviously the most jarring and scary but when that’s happening, it’s indicative of an ecosystem that is so dry that there are other impacts also happening,” said Lange. “There’s no water in the river and stream beds and that has obvious ramifications for fish populations. Even if we get enough rain and the streambed fills back up, the population loss for those species has implications for generations.”
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