(NEWSnet/AP) — As climate continues to change, fewer people are out of reach from billowing fingers of wildfire smoke, scientists say.

Wildfires are consuming three times more of the U.S. and Canada each year than in the 1980s and studies predict fire and smoke to worsen.

Is this a “new normal”?

“No, it’s a ‘new abnormal,’” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at University of Pennsylvania. “It continues to get worse. If we continue to warm the planet, we don’t settle into some new state. It’s an ever-moving baseline of worse and worse.”

It's possible the term “wildfire” needs to be reconsidered, suggests Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at  Woodwell Climate Research Center.

“We can’t really call them wildfires anymore,” Francis said. “To some extent … they’re not wild. They’re not natural anymore. We are just making them more likely. We’re making them more intense.”

Several scientists told The Assoiated Pressthe problem of smoke and wildfires will progressively worsen until the world significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which has not happened despite years of international negotiations and lofty goals.

Fires in North America are generally getting worse, burning more land. Even before July, traditionally the busiest fire month for the country, Canada has set a record for most area burned with more than 31,000 square miles, nearly 15% higher than the previous record.

“A year like this could happen with or without climate change, but warming temperatures just made it a lot more probable,” said A. Park Williams, a UCLA bioclimatologist who studies fire and water. “We're seeing, especially across the West, big increases in smoke exposure and reduction in air quality that are attributable to increase in fire activity."

As the atmosphere dries, it sucks moisture from plants, creating more fuel that burns easier, faster and with greater intensity, said Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. Fire seasons are getting lengthier, starting earlier and lasting later into the year because of warmer weather,  Flannigan said.

“We have to learn to live with fire and smoke, that’s the new reality,” he said.

Ronak Bhatia, who moved from California to Illinois for college in 2018 and now lives in Chicago, said at first it seemed like a joke: wildfire smoke following him and his friends from the West Coast. But if it continues, it will no longer be as funny.

“It makes you think about climate change and also how it essentially could affect, you know, anywhere,” Bhatia said. “It’s not just the California problem or Australia problem. It’s kind of an everywhere problem.”

Wildfires expose about 44 million people each year worldwide to unhealthy air, causing about 677,000 deaths annually with almost 39% of them children, according to a 2021 study from UK.

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