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Drought and Fires |
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Drought and Fires: Walla Walla County, Washington State, 2006
The photographs in this series were shot in the Walla Walla County in South Eastern Washington State. The fire burned more than 100,000 acres. The office of Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell, issued the following statement in October 2006: "The 2006 [fire] season, though still ongoing, is already 80 percent more active in terms of acres burned than the 10-year average. Earlier this summer, wildfires were burning on more than 309,000 acres in Washington State."
Dan Cayan, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Climate Research Division, explained the exceptionally destructive fire season as follows: "The increase in large wildfires appears to be another part of a chain of reactions to climate warming. The recent ramp-up is likely, in part, caused by natural fluctuations, but evidence is mounting that anthropogenic effects have been contributing to warmer winters and springs in recent decades." (Cayan is also co-author of a study titled Warming and Earlier Spring Increases Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity).
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