Wildfires Raging Out West

This year, 62,220 fires in the U.S. have burned 6,309,979 acres -- mostly in the Western United States, according to the latest statistics from the National Interagency Fire Center. This map shows most large wildfires now burning in the United States. Click the image for more information.

Eleven states have declared emergencies due to wildfire, and the nation's firefighting coordinating agency has been operating at its highest level of alert for a month -- stretching resources thin to combat priority fires while new ones continue to pop up. Currently there are 32 large fires burning a total of 1,159,961 acres -- including 19 in Montana burning 518,615 acres. Another 13 fires, burning 641,346 acres, are raging through Idaho.

New fires, however, have sprung up recently in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida and other southern states -- representing a new phase in this year's fire season. Scientists say increasingly intense and frequent wildfires are likely to result from an increasingly warmer climate, and that the fires we've seen in recent years may well be an early consequence of global warming.

Why? Less mountain snowfall results in drier valley conditions, and more intense heat waves and prolonged drought set the stage for tinder-dry forests that can ignite with any spark.

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