EcoWatch: A new interactive tool produced by Climate Central illustrates how rising temperatures and reduced snowpack in the western U.S. have corresponded with an increase in wildfires in recent decades.
Based on federal wildfire data from 1970 to 2012, the graphic shows how large fires in some western states--including Arizona, Colorado and Idaho--have doubled or even tripled in four decades, a period when the average spring and summer temperatures in 11 states increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit....