"These Are Climate Fires": Oregon Firefighter Ecologist Says Devastating Blazes Are a Wake-Up Call

President Trump has said little about the wildfires raging in California, Oregon and Washington for three weeks, other than to suggest poor forest management was primarily to blame. But the states' governors are pushing back and directly linking the fires to the climate crisis. These are climate fires," says Timothy Ingalsbee, an Oregon-based wildland fire ecologist and former wildland firefighter who now directs Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. Though some scientists hesitate to attribute a single event to climate change, these are exactly the conditions predicted by climatologists."