{"id":381385,"date":"2025-06-04T12:35:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=381385"},"modified":"2025-06-04T12:35:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:35:03","slug":"new-study-north-american-fires-were-four-times-more-prevalent-from-1600-1880-than-1984-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=381385","title":{"rendered":"New Study: North American Fires Were Four Times More Prevalent From 1600-1880 Than 1984-2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ChatGPT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From NoTrickZone<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Kenneth Richard<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on the historical fire-scar record, NAFSN [North American tree-ring fire-scar network] sites collectively would be expected to have burned 4346 times from 1984\u20132022, yet they burned 989 times, or only 23% of what would be expected under the historical fire regime.\u201d  \u2014 Parks et al., 2025<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

According to the prevailing alarmist narrative, the recent decades of \u201cunprecedented\u201d warming across North America was supposed to have been the<\/em> driver of the continent\u2019s contemporary \u201crecord-breaking\u201d fires and burned area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a new study using tree ring fire-scar records dating to the \u201chistorical period\u201d of 1600-1880 has determined these colder Little Ice Age centuries had far higher burn rates than recent decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany studies have reported increases in area burned associated with a warming climate over the last few decades across much of North America. Our evidence indicates that, even under a warming climate, the rate at which NAFSN sites burned in recent decades has been much lower than historical rates [1600-1880] across most of the continent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur study of 1851 tree-ring fire-scar sites and contemporary fire perimeters across the United States and Canada reveals a substantial, persistent fire deficit from 1984-2022 in many forest and woodland ecosystems, despite recent increases in burning. Contemporary fire occurrence is still far below historical (1600-1880) levels at NAFSN sites despite multiple large and \u2018record-breaking\u2019 recent fire years, such as 2020 in the western United States.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astonishingly, the non<\/em>-fire years at the 1,851 tree-ring fire-scar sites were more than one hundred times less frequent<\/em> during the Little Ice Age centuries (1600-1880) than in the last four decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe prevalence of non-fire years at the NAFSN sites in the contemporary time period [1984-2022] was >100 times more prevalent compared to the historical period\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the North American tree-ring fire-scar record indicates the historical (1600-1880) period\u2019s burn rate was more than four times greater than it was from 1984-2022, as modern fire burning was \u201conly 23% of what would be expected under the historical fire regime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image Source:\u00a0Parks et al., 2025<\/a><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the prevailing alarmist narrative, the recent decades of \u201cunprecedented\u201d warming across North America was supposed to have been\u00a0the\u00a0driver of the continent\u2019s contemporary \u201crecord-breaking\u201d fires and burned area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":381389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691819281,691835577,691835578,691818913],"class_list":["post-381385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-little-ice-age","tag-north-american","tag-tree-ring-fire-scar-record","tag-wildfires","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Bdn","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":405673,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=405673","url_meta":{"origin":381385,"position":0},"title":"Forest Composition and Fire History In Light of New Evidence","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/29\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In the last several years several excellent, peer-reviewed papers derived from the North American Tree-Ring Fire Scar Network (NAFSN) that details forest fire history back to 1600 have been published. 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