Evaluating the Snow-Wildfire Relationship Using an Ensemble of Snowpack Observations

Wildfire activity in the United States has increased in recent decades, with documented rises in the number of large fires, burned areas, and the length of the fire season (Westerling, 2016). Fires contribute to carbon emissions, widespread forest mortality, and human morbidity and mortality by posing a direct hazard and from degrading air quality. Wildfire increases are thought to be a product of several interacting factors, including human settlement in fire-prone areas, a legacy of fire suppression, as well as favorable fire weather partly attributable to anthropogenic climate change (Abatzoglou and Williams, 2016). As such, a deeper understanding of the geophysical drivers of wildfire activity can both improve its seasonal predictability and inform expectations about future wildfire under continued warming.