(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Climate Change Is Raising Texas’ Already High Wildfire Risks [1]

['Delger Erdenesanaa', 'Christopher Flavelle']

Date: 2024-02-29

Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in Texas, a danger made real this week as the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest in state history, burns out of control across the Panhandle region.

And that growing fire risk is beginning to affect the insurance market in Texas, raising premiums for homeowners and causing some insurers to withdraw from parts of the state.

For the Smokehouse Creek fire to grow so big so quickly, three weather conditions had to align: high temperatures, low relative humidity and strong winds, said John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist and a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University.

On Monday, as the Smokehouse Creek fire began to spread, it was 82 degrees Fahrenheit in Amarillo. The city’s average daytime high temperature in February is 54 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/climate/smokehouse-creek-fire-insurance-climate.html

Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.