10news continues the discussion of climate change ahead of next week's United Nations Climate Summit, with a focus on something San Diegans know all too well: wildfires.
Climate change is increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitation which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme fire events.
"It’s predicted that the total area burned will increase by 50% or even as high as 100% over the coming century. We’re going to see more fires, and more dangerous fires and more deadly fires, " says Tom Corringham, a post-doctoral research economist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD.
Climate Central analyzed 45 years of U.S. Forest Service records of large wildfires and found there are three times more major wildfires burning across the west each year than in the 1970s. The annual area burned has increased six-fold with wildfire season lasting an average of 105 days longer, research showed.