A new research has stated that it's mostly people who cause a wildfire in the United States of America. Whether it is by accident or on purpose, it has accounted for 84 percent of the whole wildfire season.
People have cause five out of six wildfires in the U.S., Mail Online has reported. The same study has also concluded that it has tripled the length of the wildfire season. Climate Change and global warming are mostly what government and scientists are pointing at when these wildfires occur. However, after the research, human activities are more to blame.
Looking at the fire data from 1992 to 2012, scientists have found out that a total of 84 percent were caused by people. A total of 44 acres has been burned because of human activities, stated ABC News. The wildfire season has increased from 46 days to 154 days. "People are moving more and more into natural wild areas and essentially providing ignition for wildfires," said lead author Jennifer Balch, a fire ecologist at the University of Colorado.
There are one million fires that human started, of which 29 percent started from burning trash. Since 1992, there is also 21 percent from arson and 11 percent were from misuse of equipment, explained the study that appeared in Monday's journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Illegal camping is what caused the fire in California, Soberanes. It has burned for nearly three long months. It was the most expensive fire in the U.S. history, it has cost $200 million in firefighting.
Another finding from the research was Fourth of July has caused one out of every five wildfires, Balch said. The places where fires most occurred is the Southeast part of U.S. 99 percent of the wildfire in there is human-triggered wildfires. In Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, fire seasons lasted more than 200 days. People are definitely to blame for the wildfires there because southeast part of the U.S. is home to swaths of forests with trees that don't catch fire easily or naturally, said study co-author Adam Mahood of the University of Colorado.
