Wildfire season across the Southwestern U.S. has begun, with multiple destructive fires burning in Arizona and New Mexico. Across the U.S., over 1 million acres have already burned this year. Drought’s relationship to wildland fire is complex, but the current drought combined with this summer’s climate outlooks show high potential for elevated significant wildland fire in the Southwestern U.S. including California. Wildfires have far reaching impacts, including threats to human safety, degrading regional and national air quality, stressing water management, and local economic losses across a variety of sectors including recreation.
The Drought Update and Wildfire Outlook Webinar for California and the Southwest, to be held on June 2, 2022, is designed to provide stakeholders and other interested parties in the region with timely information on the current drought status and outlook and wildland fire potential outlook. Additionally, this webinar will cover the Living with Fire resource as well as an emphasis on how to find wildfire and smoke risk information throughout wildfire season.
This webinar is a special joint region webinar, combining the NIDIS California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System Drought & Climate Outlook Webinar Series, which is produced in partnership with the California-Nevada Applications Program (a NOAA RISA team), and Southwest Drought Briefings, which are produced by the NIDIS Intermountain West Drought Early Warning System and the USDA Southwest Climate Hub.
Visit Drought.gov to learn more »
For more information, contact Amanda Sheffield.
