Reacción a "The area affected by forest fires in Europe could almost triple by the end of the century"

The fire season is often accompanied by an unproductive exercise in assigning blame and searching for scapegoats. This fire season, for example, we have seen discussions about the effect of climate change or land management. The problem of forest fires would not be worsening if we were heading towards an ice age (instead of global warming), and it would have been largely mitigated if our landscapes were those of a century ago, with a much smaller forest area. Fires, therefore, result from the interaction between climate and fuel management (the vegetation that burns in a fire).

This study reinforces the idea that reducing the problem of fires to a purely climate-related issue is as absurd as ignoring the reality of forests. That is, the study shows how the problem of fires will worsen significantly in a climate change scenario if we do not take adaptation measures, and also that much of the problem (though not all) can be mitigated with fuel management. In other words, the study reminds us that we must move beyond scapegoating and focus on adapting to climate and global change.