Wednesday September 25, 2024
The Hill —
As increasingly intense wildfires climb to higher elevations across the U.S. West, the burn scars they leave behind are shifting the way snow is melting, a new study has found.
The accumulation of snowpack, which appears in rivers as runoff in the spring, is an important source of water in the drought-stricken region.
For that reason, the changes to the landscape that are being wrought by wildfires are complicating water availability assessments, according to the study, published in Water Resources Research.
A Colorado-based research team decided to examine such shifts by looking at the aftermath of the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire — the state’s largest fire on record, which burned for nearly four months across federal, state and private lands.