A 'fire year': Widespread US drought fueling fears of never-ending wildfires
"Hot, dry and windy weather leads to big fires," said a climate expert.
In a normal year, David Acuña, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said firefighters would just be gearing up for another wildfire season.
But these are not normal times, he said.
The Golden State has already experienced multiple large wildfires in the first five months of 2026, including a series of major wind-driven blazes that ignited this month in Southern California, triggering mandatory evacuations for tens of thousands of residents.
"We don't refer to it as a 'fire season' anymore at all. Really, we refer to it as a 'fire year,' particularly because in 2025, we had the fires in January," said Acuña, referring to the Eaton and Palisades fires that ignited in the Los Angeles area in January 2025, killing 28 people, destroying more than 16,000 structures and burning nearly 40,000 acres.
While California isn't currently experiencing a drought, nearly two-thirds of the United States is, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The ongoing drought, especially throughout the West, is also compounded by the second-warmest winter in the United States on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Conditions for wildfires to spark up and quickly spread are not exclusive to the West. Widespread, persistent drier-than-average conditions in April led to drought expansion and intensification across other parts of the country. The Southeast, for example, had the driest April in 40 years, receiving roughly half of its average monthly precipitation, according to NOAA.
Nebraska has already recorded its biggest wildfire in state history this year, with Georgia and Florida also facing several destructive wildfires, officials said.
In April, the "Pineland Road Fire" and the "Highway 82 Fire" swept through drought-stricken Southern Georgia, burning more than 32,000 acres combined and destroying more than 120 homes, officials said.
In March, the "Morrill Fire" blazed across central and western Nebraska, consuming more than 600,000 acres and killing a firefighter battling the fire.
Earlier this month, a wind-whipped wildfire in the Texas panhandle that ignited in a landfill rapidly spread into a residential neighborhood in Potter County, destroying 52 homes, officials said.
"Hot, dry and windy weather leads to big fires. And climate change will exacerbate these conditions. So, we will see hotter, drier, and in some cases, windier conditions," Toddi Steelman, a wildfire expert and vice provost for climate and sustainability at Duke University, told ABC News.
"Models suggest that we will see more intense weather events, which means more concentrated rainfall events, more rain-free days and higher maximum wind speeds," Steelman said. "This means that fire season is longer and, in some cases, approaching a fire year, rather than a fire season."
Fewer fires, but double the acres
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, as of May 22, at least 29,023 wildfires have broken out across the nation this year, burning more than 2.3 million acres, or about 1.2 million more acres consumed during the same time frame in 2025.
"The perception is that there are a lot of fires. Actually, there's not. There's 30% fewer fires over a five-year average, but we are more than double the acres burned," said Acuña, referring to California's recent wildfire history.
Acuña said one of the reasons for the spread of fire is the amount of fuel available to burn due to an increase in rain across the state, which has caused grass crops to grow, die out, and grow again, leaving behind multiple layers of dry vegetation.
"If you look at the series of fires we've had from roughly 2012 through now, there are so many more acres that have burned, and more devastating fires," Acuña said. "If you look at the top 20 fires in California's history, it's nearly all in recent history. So, that's a big concern for us because we're concerned about this trend continuing."
Acuña noted that similar wildfire behavior is now happening in other parts of the country.
"Almost all of the United States, in one way or another, is seeing the effects of climate change, which is drying out the fuels," Acuña said.
Human amplification of wildfires
Steelman, the Duke University wildfire expert, said that while natural events, such as lightning strikes, cause wildfires, most U.S. wildfires, particularly those in the East, are caused by unintentional or intentional acts by humans.
Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group that works to improve community development and land management decisions, estimates that between 2005 and 2025, more than 132,000 homes and businesses have been destroyed in wildfires.
"The confluence of more wealth and retiring baby boomers has enabled more people to retire in beautiful forested places," said Steelman, using the term "Wildland Urban Interface" (WUI) to describe places where humans have moved into what had been sparsely populated forest areas of the country.
What's in store for this summer?
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist for the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, pushed back on the notion of a year-round fire season.
"Are we seeing longer fire seasons, fire seasons where fires are at least possible in essentially every calendar month in some locations in some years? Yes, we are. And you could reasonably call that, by some metrics, a year-round fire season if you can get fires in any month," Swain told ABC News.
But Swain said large "consequential wildfires" still occur mostly in a seasonal timeframe, depending on the region.
"Is it true that we're going to get disastrous fires equally in any calendar month? Definitely not. In fact, in that sense, there is still a very clear seasonality to it that has really been unbroken for the most part," Swain said.
Swain noted that the largest wildfires in the country are occurring in drought-stricken areas of the U.S., including Georgia, Florida, Colorado, north Texas and the Central Great Plains region.
"I think the reason there is so much widespread fire activity right now is that this is probably one of the greatest spatial expanses of significant drought we've had in the past century in the U.S.," Swain said.
Looking ahead, Swain said that a strong El Niño, a phenomenon in which the sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are warmer than average, is on the horizon and could increase precipitation in the U.S., specifically in areas experiencing drought.
"That actually could be helpful once it arrives in a sustained fashion. But that might not be until autumn or even later. So, we have months to get through, and in the meantime, I would expect that the wildfire situation in the Western U.S. will significantly intensify in the coming weeks and inch up at least until the summer monsoon arrives in the desert southwest," Swain said.
Swain said he expects to see in the next few months a "big uptick" above the already elevated level of fire activity, especially in places like Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and western Nebraska.
Swain said later this summer, he expects the wildfire danger to spread to higher elevations in the Rocky Mountains, which over the winter recorded its lowest snowpack year on record. He said he also expects the level of wildfire activity to go up in places like Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and the Pacific Northwest.
"We are expecting that this summer will be warmer than average," Swain said. "So, that could lead to some challenges there, too."
Related Topics
Popular Reads
ABC News Live