Even in tropical climates with wet rainy season you can have forest fires now and centuries ago. If people set fire to things fire will happen.
That’s a separate issue from climate change. Climate change can increase or decrease propensity of climate related phenomena compared to a reference point.
Does climate suppress or exacerbate climate related phenomena? Yes. Still this was a fire set by someone. Like you know the Chicago fire happened.
Most fires aren't arson, but instead downed power lines.
But even that isn't a good measure of people setting fires because humans put out so many fires of all different causes it's nearly impossible to figure out what the pre and post human era damage would be.
For example if we put out 10 dry lightning caused fires when they are a few acres in size was that more or less than would have happened prehistorically. Nearly impossible to tell.
What we can tell is the number of fires of all causes, natural or human is rapidly accelerating in the past few decades and the fires are burning faster, hotter, and longer than in previous record keeping.
>> Most fires aren't arson, but instead downed power lines.
Is this true? maybe for specific regions, or compared to say arson, but Canada has thousands of forest fires every year and the vast majority are lightning strikes. We also don't put usually them out, so I don't think that's a great measure. The thing that's changed in the US and Canada is how much prevention and suppression we do. You'd expect this to result in fewer fires but bigger outliers, at least near people.
>Nearly 85 percent* of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson.
*Source: 2000-2017 data based on Wildland Fire Management Information (WFMI) and U.S. Forest Service Research Data Archive
Note that conditions like powerline failures are considered human caused in the above information.
That’s a separate issue from climate change. Climate change can increase or decrease propensity of climate related phenomena compared to a reference point.
Does climate suppress or exacerbate climate related phenomena? Yes. Still this was a fire set by someone. Like you know the Chicago fire happened.