According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), multiple studies have found that climate change has already led to an increase in wildfire season length, wildfire frequency, and burned area. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions makes similar statements on its website and adds, "Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions."
But Jessica Jaworski of Answers in Genesis has a different take.
"There's a lot of blame that supposed man-made climate change is causing wildfires," she recently told American Family Radio. "When carefully managed, prescribed fires actually aid natural ecosystem cycles, [but] there's been several poor policies that have been in place that prevent prescribed fires because they're saying it's increasing harmful carbon dioxide, which they're saying is increasing some of the emissions."
But as she pointed out, when trees are left unmanaged, they die, dry out, fall to the ground, and become combustible material.
So Jaworski submits that fires should be managed in a way that provides ecosystem benefits and also stewards God's creation well.
"When we look at historical records within fire … the public can access these records through the National Interagency Fire Center, and there appears to be a decrease in the amount of fires," Jaworski told the radio program. "If you look at the historical records, the number of fires and areas burned was actually substantially higher in the 1920s than it is today."
Justin Haskins of The Heartland Institute, "one of the world's leading free-market think tanks," makes similar remarks about wildfires – the causes and the number of fires today versus in recent decades – in his recent op-ed for FoxNews.com.
