NEW: The island of Maui is being swept into the Age of Flames, also known as the Pyrocene, and residents and governments are struggling to cope with their descent into the firestorm.
instead of resetting them for new growth. And where wildfire was once very rare in the landscape, like Maui, residents and governments are struggling to cope with their descent into the firestorm.Hawaii Wildfire Management OrganizationIn the immediate term, what’s driving Maui’s fires is what makes wildfires so deadly anywhere in the world: wind. Hurricane Dora, which is churning hundreds of miles to the south, is a low-pressure system.
Maui is in its dry season, but parts of the island were already abnormally parched, to the point of moderate or severe drought,. Less moisture in the landscape means that vegetation dries out and piles up, ready to burn. Dry winds exacerbate this problem by scouring the landscape, sucking out any moisture that might remain. In general, as the atmosphere warms with climate change, the air gets thirstier and thirstier, leading to further desiccation.
Historical factors have also conspired to push Maui into the Pyrocene. When Europeans arrived in the late 18th century and established plantations for growing sugarcane and pineapple, they also brought invasive grasses. Now the economics have changed, and those fields lie fallow. But the grasses have spread like a plague. “Those fire-prone invasive species fill in any gaps anywhere else—roadsides, in between communities, in between people’s homes, all over the place,” says Pickett.
This stuff is highly sensitive to short-term fluctuations in rainfall. The grass will grow like crazy when the rains come, then quickly desiccate when the landscape dries. “When we get these events like we’re seeing these past few days—when the relative humidity really drops low—all those fine fuels become very explosive,” says fire ecologist Clay Trauernicht of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
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