Hundreds of Canadian wildfires that blanketed much of Pennsylvania in acrid smoke this week were started by careless humans, in some cases, and by lightning strikes in others.

Careless humans and lightning have started wildfires forever. But this year in Quebec, where an average of 1 square mile of forest would have been burned by wildfires at this point in a normal year, more than 600 square miles already have been consumed by flames.

Although climate change didn’t start the fires, there is little doubt that it has created conditions that make them much more severe.

Alberta and Saskatchewan have been in severe droughts since 2020. The temperature in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hit 91 degrees recently, 40 degrees above normal.

”The climate signal is very strong. We are seeing both a larger area burned, and more severe fires,” said Robert Scheller, professor of forestry at North Carolina State University.

”The vegetation in the forests is exceptionally dry,” said climate scientist Daniel Swain of UCLA, making it far more likely that routine lightning strikes will start fires.

Massive wildfires over the past several years comport with climate models showing that effect of rising temperatures, and climate scientists predict a continuing pattern.

Still, climate change deniers and minimizers prefer not to see a pattern through the smoke-induced haze, and thus decline to accelerate policies to reduce the risk. Unless they wake up and smell the bonfire, expect more of the same.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS