The Erosfire Project

2011 was an exceptional year for wildfires in the United States, with major blazes effecting Arizona and Texas. Summer and early fall are wildfire season in many places, but few areas face as great a threat as the western part of the United States, which has an abundance of burnable brush and trees, in areas that rarely get much rainfall.

The Arizona Wallow Fire

In late May 2011 a giant wildfire, known as the Wallow Fire, raced across eastern Arizona, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and hopping the border into New Mexico. Officials said the fire had burned more than 469,000 acres, making it the largest in Arizona's history.

The Wallow Fire is named after the Bear Wallow Wilderness in the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests, where the fire is believed to have started after a campfire blew out of control.The fire sent plumes of smoke over a vast area and tied up traffic, closing many highways. Dry weather and fierce winds caused the fire to spread quickly, frustrating the more than 4,000 firefighters assigned to the blaze.

Texas Wildfires

Early September of 2011 brought fast-moving wildfires that consumed tens of thousands of acres of drought-stricken areas of the state, as high winds spurred flames that have killed a mother and her child and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes. 

The biggest fire was in Bastrop County, just east of Austin, where 25,000 acres had burned, nearly 500 homes had been destroyed and at least 5,000 people had been evacuated.

Since wildfire season began in November 2010, nearly 21,000 fires have destroyed more than 1,500 homes throughout Texas in what is now considered the most destructive wildfire in the history of Texas. More than half of those destroyed residences — roughly 770 — have been lost since dozens of new fires erupted over the Labor Day weekend, fueled by high winds and the dry conditions created by the state’s worst one-year drought on record.

• Saving the Forests, and the Climate
  Readers respond to an article about the effects of the climatic disruption on forests.
  
  
• With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Crucial Climate Protectors
  Trees, natural carbon sponges, help keep heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But insect and human threats are taking a heavy toll on them.
  
  
• California: Fires Threaten Kern County
  Residents of several hundred homes faced mandatory evacuations Monday, and at least one school district was closed as wildfires challenged firefighters in Central California.