TALENT, OREGON - Dozens of conflagrations have raged across more than 1.6 million hectares in Oregon, California and Washington state since August, laying waste to several small towns, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 35 people.
IS THE PROBLEM POOR FOREST MANAGEMENT OR CLIMATE CHANGE? US President Donald Trump blames poor forest management - mainly a failure to cull overgrown forests - for the increasing number and intensity of fires. The governors of California and Oregon - the states worst hit this season - say climate change is largely responsible.Starting in the early 1900s, wildfires were fought aggressively and suppressed, which led to a build-up of dead trees and brush in forested areas.
"We don't want to minimise the impact of climate because it's significant already and because it's growing in the future," said Dan Cayan, a climate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. A drought-induced infestation of bark beetles killed 150 million trees alone in California, creating huge swaths of easily flammable material.California also experienced thunderstorms with very little rain that contributed to a surge in dry lightning strikes - the most widespread burst of such storms in California since 2008.