Western wildfires: A growing threat across the country
By Alex Kim, Grace Springer
Smoke rising in this California forest as the blaze continues. Photo via Flickr
As I’m writing this article in February, there is a wildfire burning in Laguna Beach, California, that forced evacuations — an occurrence that used to be rare at this time of year, but not anymore. Parts of Southern California are experiencing a heatwave that’s fueling winter wildfires that can potentially send smoke thousands of miles outside of California.
Jana Houser, Ph.D., is a professor of meteorology at Ohio University. She told Climate360, “We [Ohioans] can periodically notice the effects of wildfires out west when the fires become so numerous and large that their smoke enters the jet stream of the upper atmosphere.”
In July 2021, Public Health Dayton ...
