The World Meteorological Orgnaization (WMO) has issued a “Provisional Statement on the State of Global Climate in 2012”. Some of their conclusions about the number of fires differ slightly from the stats we assembled on November 23, 2012.
The WMO’s document is lengthy, but below are some excerpts.
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Wildfires
Dry conditions, combined with the heat in the Northern Hemisphere during most of spring and summer 2012, contributed to devastating wildfires. Across the contiguous United States, the number of wildfires throughout the year was the least since 2000; however, the amount of acres burned per fire event during the same period was the largest on record.
Significant wildfires also developed in the Eurasian Continent. In Spain, over 184,000 hectares of land had been scorched by wildfires between January 1st and September 15th, the highest in a decade. The most notable wildfire ignited on September 24th in Valencia, forcing nearly 2,000 people to evacuate. In August 2012, southern parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded a wildfire that burned nearly 5,000 hectares of land, causing nearly 83 million U.S. dollars in damage.
Drought
2012 began with severe to exceptional drought, as defined by the North American Drought Monitor (NADM), across the south central and southeastern contiguous United States and the northern half of Mexico. In the southern Plains of the U.S., the 2012 drought was a continuation of severe drought conditions which developed in 2011. Throughout 2012, drought conditions evolved across the United States, improving in some areas while deteriorating in others.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), nearly two-thirds of the contiguous United States (65.5 percent) was considered to be in moderate to exceptional drought on September 25th, 2012—the date of peak coverage and the highest drought footprint in the 13-year history of the USDM. Overall, the 2012 drought affected an estimated 164 million U.S. residents and resulted in a multi-billion dollar agricultural disaster in the United States—the most severe and extensive impact since the drought of 1988. Late-summer (June–August) and autumn (September–November) precipitation provided substantial drought relief in some areas across the contiguous U.S.; however, significant drought persisted through year’s end in much of the western and central United States. Meanwhile northern Mexico’s drought conditions improved, as tropical storms brought beneficial rains to the affected areas. However, by the end of September, Mexico was still experiencing moderate drought conditions across the northern areas.
Significant drought also affected parts of Europe during the Northern Hemisphere winter, spring, and summer. Several countries reported their driest month in several years: Spain (6th driest January, driest February since 2000, and driest March since 1997), Portugal (driest February since 1931), France (driest February since 1959), the United Kingdom (driest March since 1953 and the 5th driest March), and Germany (3rd driest March). During the first three months of the year Spain recorded its lowest January–March mean precipitation value since 1947. Dry conditions continued to affect Spain during the summer, resulting in the second driest summer in the last 60 years. However, wet conditions developed across parts of northern Europe during the end of spring, while some southern areas had wetter conditions during the start of autumn. Drought conditions also affected parts of western Russia and western Siberia during June and July. The dry conditions caused crop failure or damages, resulting in nearly 630 million U.S. dollars in damages. Lack of precipitation during most of the year, combined with warmer-than average temperatures, contributed to severe drought conditions across parts of southeastern Europe, greatly impacting harvest yields, stream flows and water supplies.
went looking for some drought history. Build your own graph from NOAA data here …
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp
looked up history of acres burned available at http://www.nifc.gov
Droughts in the US in 1988, 2000, 2001, and 2006 were worse than 2012. The fact that droughts were worse back then and wildfires were not as bad in terms of acres burned would indicate that we are doing something wrong.