The Southwest's spring wildfire season has started earlier than normal

The Southwest's spring wildfire season has started earlier than normal

Transcript¹

Experts say the Southwestern U.S. is now the driest it's been in 1,200 years, which has many on edge for another long, destructive summer for wildfires.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

People near Flagstaff, Ariz., are nervously² watching a nearby wildfire. High winds in the forecast there could cause it to grow rapidly. Large fires also threaten homes in New Mexico, and a prairie wildfire has already destroyed homes and farmland in Nebraska. This earlier-than-normal start to the spring wildfire season is being blamed on an extended drought made worse by climate change. As NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, scientists say much of the West is now experiencing the driest conditions in 1,200 years.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE³: The fire season, if you can even call it that anymore, typically starts around now in the Southwest before the summer monsoons⁴ arrive, if they do. But the fires are igniting weeks earlier and lasting⁵ longer because the winter snow is melting sooner. That means the fuels, the brush, is already extraordinarily⁶ dry.

PARK WILLIAMS: From a fire perspective, the dice⁷ are now loaded for another big fire year in 2022.

SIEGLER: This is Park Williams, a UCLA professor who's studying the fallout of this 23-year megadrought in the Western U.S. Scientists now know that megadroughts like this one were common here historically and that much of the 20th century was actually relatively⁸ wet. That coincided with an explosion of development and a long and still-standing U.S. government policy to stamp out wildfires.

WILLIAMS: We did a great job for a hundred years stopping fires. But we, despite our best efforts, are losing control of the fire regime in the West. There are too many trees, and it's too warm. Things are drying out, and we're getting a lot of fire.

SIEGLER: Williams predicts we'll have another long, expensive, destructive and smoky summer, and there's no indication things will improve in the coming years, either. But fire experts caution about calling this current crisis, where we're seeing upwards⁹ of 10 million acres burn every year, unprecedented¹⁰. Lincoln Bramwell is the chief historian for the U.S. Forest Service.

LINCOLN BRAMWELL: There's more people in the path of these fires, and that can make them more destructive.

SIEGLER: Bramwell bristles¹¹ a little at the now-popular term in the news media of a megafire to describe the destructive fires like the deadly 2018 Camp Fire or last December's Marshall Fire near Boulder¹², Colo. It suggests they're unprecedented when they're really not. Before we got so good at fire suppression, he says, upwards of 30 million acres tended to burn in the West every year.

BRAMWELL: Culturally, we have a hard time wrapping our heads around that because we've kind of expected that this doesn't happen. And if it does happen, there's a lot of resources that will come out and try to save the day.

SIEGLER: The game-changer, though, is human-caused climate change that's making these fires potentially much worse. And in some parts of the West, you're seeing a big shift in how fire managers are trying to manage the public's expectations because of it.

BRIAN OLIVER: Everybody's very much on edge.

SIEGLER: Brian Oliver is the wildland fire chief for Boulder, Colo., which has seen scores of close calls with wildfires already this spring. Climate change has meant erratic¹³ weather swings here. Last fall and into the winter, he says, it was drier in the Rocky Mountain foothills than in Death Valley. He says firefighters should not be expected to stop these fires.

OLIVER: I equate¹⁴ that to trying to fight a hurricane, right? We don't mobilize a force to go turn a hurricane around, right? We get everybody out of the way, and then we try to come back in and clean up after we can.

SIEGLER: And fire scientists say the times we do successfully stop a fire before it gets out of hand, we just leave more fuels on the ground for the next ignition.

Kirk Siegler, NPR News.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 monsoons   

n.（南亚、尤指印度洋的）季风( monsoon的名词复数 )；（与季风相伴的）雨季；（南亚地区的）雨季

参考例句：

• In Ban-gladesh, the monsoons have started. 在孟加拉，雨季已经开始了。 来自辞典例句
• The coastline significantly influences the monsoons in two other respects. 海岸线在另外两个方面大大地影响季风。 来自辞典例句

5 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

6 extraordinarily   

adv.格外地；极端地

参考例句：

• She is an extraordinarily beautiful girl.她是个美丽非凡的姑娘。
• The sea was extraordinarily calm that morning.那天清晨，大海出奇地宁静。

7 dice   

n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险

参考例句：

• They were playing dice.他们在玩掷骰子游戏。
• A dice is a cube.骰子是立方体。

8 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

9 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

10 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

11 bristles   

短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the bristles on his chin 他下巴上的胡楂子
• This job bristles with difficulties. 这项工作困难重重。

12 boulder   

n.巨砾；卵石，圆石

参考例句：

• We all heaved together and removed the boulder.大家一齐用劲，把大石头搬开了。
• He stepped clear of the boulder.他从大石头后面走了出来。

13 erratic   

adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的

参考例句：

• The old man had always been cranky and erratic.那老头儿性情古怪,反复无常。
• The erratic fluctuation of market prices is in consequence of unstable economy.经济波动致使市场物价忽起忽落。

14 equate   

v.同等看待，使相等

参考例句：

• You can't equate passing examination and being intelligent.你不能把考试及格看成是聪明。
• You cannot equate his poems with his plays.你不可以把他的诗歌和他的剧本相提并论。