Podcast with our own Rich Sauer and Anthony Watts about NIFC disappearing historical fire data
Anthony Watts, Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate, and former Ventura County Fire Wildland Fire Capt Rich Sauer as they explore the possible reasons that the NIFC "disappeared” historical fire data prior to 1983 and innovative alternatives to current airtanker programs with PCADS for a more effective, affordable and large scale Air Guard/Reserve level response (PCADS mention starts at the 21 min mark).
#NIFC #datafailure #USFS #PCADS #saintindustries #bringtherain
See Original Article Links Below
CAUGHT: ‘Inconvenient’ U.S. Wildfire Data Has Been ‘Disappeared’ by National Interagency Fire Center @NIFC_Fire
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. However, after making that entire dataset public for decades, now, in a blatant act of cherry picking, NIFC “disappeared” a portion of it, and only show data from 1983. You can see it here.
Fortunately, the Internet never forgets, and the entire dataset is preserved on the Internet Wayback machine and other places, despite NIFC’s ham-handed attempt to disappear the data.
Why would they do this you ask? The answer is simple; data prior to 1983 shows that U.S. wildfires were far worse both in frequency and total acreage burned. By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset, now all of the sudden we get a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperature, which is perfect for claiming “climate change is making wildfire worse”. See figure 1 below for a before and after comparison of what the data looks like when you plot it.
Original article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/13/caught-inconvenient-u-s-wildfire-data-has-been-disappeared-by-national-interagency-fire-center-nifc_fire/