The U.S. Forest Service suspects human activity is behind the historic wildfire currently burning more than 800 acres in the White Mountain National Forest near Gorham, N.H. But experts said climate change has likely made the fire — which is still under investigation — more intense and harder to contain.
“[Climate change] makes everything go up to eleven,” said Mary Stampone, the state’s climatologist.
The fire is burning in an area of the state that is seeing abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor update last week. These conditions have made normal components of the forest floor like leaf litter, dead trees and timber like kindling, the Forest Service said in a statement, aiding the fire’s spread.
Ray Berthiaume, a forester with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, said recent conditions created a “perfect storm” for a hard-to-contain wildfire.
“The days have been warm and the evenings have been warm. The humidity levels have been low and we haven't had a whole lot of rainfall,” he said.
Research has shown that warmer and drier nights driven by climate change extend and intensifies wildfire burning.
In the Gorham area during the first few days of the fire, temperatures were warmer than average, according to the National Weather Service, with a high of 78 degrees on Thursday.
The Forest Service said the fire has been actively burning through the night, “when fire activity is usually tempered due to higher relative humidity.”
Nationally, nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime figures, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which was published in 2023.
Over the weekend, cooler temperatures and increased precipitation did help mitigate the fire’s spread, according to the Forest Service. As of Sunday, 29% of the fire was contained, according to the National Forest’s Facebook page.
Climate change is making New Hampshire warmer and wetter overall, but also increasing the risk of short-term drought, according to the state’s most recent climate assessment from 2021. This is because warmer temperatures means surface water evaporates more quickly and the atmosphere holds more moisture, which can lead to drought.
“There's just an additional amount of dryness that wouldn't have happened 50 years ago or 100 years ago,” Stampone said. “...So things like fires and the intensity of them and either how big they get or how long they last, that intensity can be attributed to the extremes in dryness and temperature that we can attribute to climate change.”
This fire is the biggest since the National Forest was founded over 100 years ago, a Forest Service spokesperson said.
Climate change has made fires more intense around the world, like in wildfires that burned across Canada and northern Minnesota in July.
Plus, in the White Mountains, a lot of the terrain is steep and hard to access via road, Berthiaume, the UNH forester, said.
Despite the wet weekend aiding in fire suppression, the ongoing drought goes beyond surface water conditions and can persist even if it rains.
“Further down into the soil, it's still pretty dry,” Stampone said.
During a public meeting Thursday, the Forest Service said it will take something termed a “season ending event” – like multiple inches of rainfall or snow to control the fire. Controlling a fire is different than containment – a controlled fire means the fire is extinguished while a contained fire means it has stopped spreading beyond a certain area.
The Forest Service said there will be another public meeting with the latest on the Wild River Fire on Tuesday, Nov. 10 from 6-7 p.m. at Shelburne Town Hall, 74 Village Road in Shelburne, N.H. The meeting will also be streamed online here.
