Debris from the 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii
Rick Bowmer/Associated Press/Alamy
Wildfires in the western United States aren’t just getting bigger. They are also growing rapidly, putting millions of people and property at greater risk.
“Given the destruction of homes and lives lost, we really need to think about the speed of the fire rather than the size of the fire,” said Jennifer Balch of the University of Colorado Boulder.
Fast-spreading wildfires, such as California’s Camp Fire in 2021 and Hawaii’s Lahaina Fire last year, are especially destructive, making them essentially unstoppable because they advance faster than firefighters can take…
