The extensive wildfires, which led to numerous fatalities and devastated Maui recently, have spurred liberal activists to attribute the situation to climate change.
They are also calling for President Joe Biden to declare a national state of emergency. However, a wildfire specialist from the University of Hawaii had cautioned years ago that dangers like imported grasses pose a significant threat to such disasters.
In 2014, Dr. Clay Trauernicht, a specialist in wildland fire science and management at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, conducted research and analysis in collaboration with the Pacific Fire Exchange.
Trauernicht’s work warned that humans contribute significantly to the increased wildfire threat by introducing nonnative, fire-prone grasses and shrubs, which lead to a higher abundance of ignitions throughout the island chain.
Trauernicht has authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies, and his proficiency encompasses fire ecology, ecosystems, dynamics of tropical forests and savannas, as well as statistical modeling.
According to Trauernicht, these grasses and shrubs “cover nearly one-quarter of Hawaii’s total land area.” He says this fact combined with a “warming, drying climate and year-round fire season, greatly increases the incidence of larger fires.”
Trauernicht informed The New York Times that inadequate forestry practices and a lack of comprehension of biodiversity are primarily responsible for rendering the islands “incredibly vulnerable.”
Fire expert Clay Trauernicht (@claytrau) says changes to the Hawaiian landscape, such as the "dramatic expansion" of "non-native tropical grasses," helped provide much of the fuel for the devastating wildfires on Maui that have killed dozens of people so far. pic.twitter.com/NUshFmiB2I
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) August 11, 2023
A study released in 2020 revealed that uncontrolled and non-native vegetation growth was responsible for over 85% of the land devastated by a trio of wildfires in 2018, two years prior.
Nevertheless, activists and various media sources have swiftly pointed to climate change as the cause of this week’s devastating and deadly wildfires.
The current calls to declare a “climate emergency” disregard the fact that Hawaii already enacted legislation pronouncing a climate emergency in 2021.
Media outlets such as The Guardian and CNBC, among others, have echoed the climate change narrative in their coverage of Hawaii, a portrayal that Trauernicht has indicated is misleading.
Trauernict posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “Blaming this on weather and climate is misleading. Hawaii’s fire problem could be far, far more manageable with adequate support, planning, and resources for fuel reduction projects, agricultural land use and restoration, and reforestation around communities and the foot of our forests.”
He also mentioned that Hawaii’s grasslands amass fuels quickly and that this, coupled with hotter and drier conditions, will only worsen the issue.
Connecting climate change directly to wildfires has become the latest instance of hasty conclusions.
This became evident during Canada’s wildfire season, which led to the devastation of millions of acres this year, spreading smoke across the Canadian border and impacting multiple states.
Amid climate-related panic, numerous headlines attributed the fires to “climate change.” However, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that during a typical season, half of Canada’s wildfires arise from lightning strikes, while the other half result from human activities ranging from discarded cigarette butts to sparks from passing trains.
