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It’s wildfire season again in California and the West. Researchers have developed a new way to predict when vegetation dries to the point it is most vulnerable to large-scale fires in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. This year’s forecast says the highest-risk fire period will begin July 13?weeks earlier than usual.

Despite that, the new study also shows that unlike other areas of the western United States, global warming has not caused any apparent long-term trend toward early fire seasons in the Santa Monicas.

The scientists eventually hope to expand their unique fire-risk forecasting method to all of Southern California and beyond.
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The annual summer wildfires are harmful both to our weather and to our health. Judd Slivka writes in The Arizona Republic that U.S. forests have been considered as possible targets by al-Qaeda terrorists. An al-Qaeda prisoner told the FBI he’d developed a plan to set midsummer forest fires in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. An FBI memo says, “The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies.”
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