BERKELEY – (INT) – A new study suggests that wildfires could cover 7 million acres in California over the next 25 years.

The study found that human activity explains as much about the frequency and location of wildfires as climate influences.

Michal Mann, assistant professor of geography at George Washington University and lead author of the study, said that although humans don’t have as much control over climate change "We can reduce our risks by disincentivizing housing development in fire-prone areas, better managing public land, and rethinking the effectiveness of our current firefighting approach."

Co-author Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension fire ecology specialist whose lab is at the University of California, Berkeley, "This is an important finding about how we model climate change effects, and it also confirms that getting a handle on where and how we build our communities is essential to limiting future losses."

In a model that examined California wildfires' destruction over the last 60 years, Mann estimated that fire damage will more than triple by mid-century, increasing to nearly half a billion dollars annually.

Story Date: May 3, 2016