Some forecasts in early summer suggested the U.S. would experience its worse fire season on record. This is a follow up with an early look back at what actually happened; early because we still have November and December to go in 2021.
California accounted for almost 40% of all acres burned in the country. Surprisingly, California’s 2021 acreage burned was just 60% of 2020 – meaning, 2021 was not as bad as 2020 (2,495,889 in 2021 versus 4,133,520 in 2020).
How did the entire country do overall?
11 of the past 20 years burned more acreage than 2021 – but 2021 is not yet over, of course.
Very important – the NIAFC deleted all annual fire data prior to 1984 saying that its recording did not meet standards. The old data showed many years with far more acres burned. These charts from a post I did in 2020.
Here is what the old data series looks like – you can see that 1983-1984 was likely the lowest point on the entire series. Hence, by deleting old data, we see what appears to be a steadily rising number of acres in future years.
The NIAFC truncated the data series at the exact bottom of the series. Conspiracy theorists might suggest this was done for political reasons. This illustrates why government data can never be trusted – all data is subject to manipulation, cherry picking and presentation choices.
A side effect of the NIAFC doing things like this, together with the past year and half’s public health data nonsense[1] is that trust in science itself is gone.
[1] Covid is a real disease that has impacted far too many people. Vaccines do work and you should get vaccinated if you can. The problem is that NPIs mostly did not work and still do not work – but the experts persist with a religious belief that if they only do them harder, they will eventually work. Covid is not a hoax but much of the “treatment” appears to have been a hoax. Remember, I am a brain injured idiot with no relevant experience. I make observations and ask stupid questions.
