Heat wave settles in over U.S. West, raising wildfire risk

Aug 01, 2024

Tens of millions of Americans living in the U.S. West endured scorching temperatures on Tuesday while wind gusts and dry conditions stoked dozens of wildfires, prompting evacuations across the parched region.

Excessive heat will blanket an area stretching from the U.S. Southwest north through Nevada and into Idaho and Montana over the next two days before milder temperatures arrive on Friday, the National Weather Service said. More than 20 million people are affected by the service's advisories.

Temperatures in Phoenix and Las Vegas were expected to surpass 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 C) by midday on Tuesday while 1,200 miles (1,900 km) to the north in Billings, Montana, a high of 107 degrees Fahrenheit was forecast by the service.

The heat, along with persistent windy and dry conditions, has amplified the threat of wildfires over the last few days.

About 20 fires were burning throughout the state, scorching more than 100,000 acres (40,470 hectares) so far, said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Three of the fires were 98% contained as of Tuesday morning.

In Riverside, California, about 55 miles (88 km) east of Los Angeles, a blaze that began on Sunday destroyed or damaged more than a dozen homes over the past two days. The Hawarden Fire, which was 20% contained as of Tuesday, was sparked by fireworks, authorities said, forcing about 100 people to evacuate, injuring two residents and burning more than 500 acres, officials said.

The California blazes were among some 69 large, active fires burning in the West, including 24 in Oregon and 9 in Arizona, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

The center urged residents in the region to stay vigilant and prepare to evacuate at a moment's notice.

The Biden administration said on Tuesday that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would begin sharing satellite data with the interior and agriculture departments in an effort to rapidly detect and report wildfire starts.

"With more real-time information we can reduce the risks to crews ... and improve our response time reducing the risk to impacted communities," Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

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Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”