The fires that have been raging for several months in the western United States are the worst on record. What is the reason for these "mega-fires" and why is their intensity so critical?
On Monday, September 14, 2020, Donald Trump traveled to California, where about 1.3 million hectares of forest went up in smoke according to data released by CalFire on September 16 - more than 100 times the size of the city of Paris. When Gavin Newsom, the state's Democratic governor, and his team reminded him of the impact of global warming on these devastating fires, the White House replied, "It's going to get colder eventually, you'll see."
Despite the U.S. President's assertion, the evolution of fires in the West in recent years is critical. Never have so many hectares of forest burned in the United States since 1932, when data began to be collected. To understand the impact of global warming on this phenomenon, our decoding video in animated maps is based on data from CalFire, California's fire monitoring center.
But today, NASA is publishing a surprising new image. The image of the smoke carried by the hurricanes on the eastern seaboard of the United States. However, on September 14, the two tropical cyclones named Paulette and Sally appeared in an otherwise clear sky. It was the next day that smoke from the fires reached the region.
Thus on Wednesday, September 16, near the border between Florida and Alabama, hundreds of people had to be rescued after the torrential rains caused by Sally. Some speak of the equivalent of four months of rain falling in only four hours.
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