Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) ran a story blaming the unusual number of wildfires in the state in January and February on climate change. This is wrong. One year’s early start to the wildfire season can’t be blamed on climate change. [emphasis, links added]
Only a long-term trend of increasing or increasingly early wildfires would suggest climate change as a factor in this year’s fires, but no such trend exists.
A buildup of vegetation due to improved rainfall conditions in previous years, human populations expanding into the urban/forest interface, and more human-sparked fires from carelessness and arson, is the cause unusual number of wildfires starting off the year in 2025.
The WPR story, “Wisconsin sees record start to the fire season as climate change drives more blazes,” which is long on speculation but short on hard data and evidence, says:
“Wisconsin saw a record number of fires in January and February this year due to a lack of snow as climate change has set the stage for more wildfires,” says Danielle Kaeding, WPR’s environment and energy reporter for Northern Wisconsin. “Wisconsin averages 864 wildfires that burn around 1,800 acres each year, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
“The state had already seen more than 470 fires as of Monday, double the average for this time of year. More than 1,900 acres have already been set ablaze,” Kaeding continues.
Kaeding interviewed Jim Bernier, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) forest fire section manager, about the fires, which he blamed on two years of drought caused by climate change.
“With these droughty conditions that we’re experiencing, we’re seeing these fire-staffing needs occurring more and more all year round,” Bernier said. “We’ve never had this many fires in January and February ever in the state of Wisconsin,”
Bernier’s claim is belied by the fact that Wisconsin is not in drought, and especially not an unusually severe drought.
Data from the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) shows that in January through March of 2025, precipitation was nearly an inch above normal, with 2025 being the 35th wettest year [since] 1895. At present, no counties in Wisconsin are designated as being under Drought Disaster conditions.
Long-term drought data for Wisconsin show that over the past 30 years, drought conditions have been less severe than historically common, with the last decade being particularly wet in general. (See the graph from NIDIS, below.)
The fact that Wisconsin has not suffered unusual degrees of drought or extremely hot temperatures in recent years is confirmed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Wisconsin State Climate Summary, which reports that the number of very hot days in Wisconsin has declined sharply over the past century, while the amount of winter and summer precipitation has either slightly increased or remained about the same.
Wisconsin is no stranger to wildfires. A large percentage of its land has been forested throughout its history. But wildfires were much larger in the past.
As detailed by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the WDNR, the largest single wildfire in Wisconsin history, the Peshtigo fire of October 1871, occurred more than 150 years of global warming ago.
That single fire burned more than 1.2 million acres and was, in fact, the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, claiming more than 1,200 lives.
Wildfires have been common throughout the state’s history, and the worst fire seasons and the vast majority of fires happened decades and even more than a century ago, when global average temperatures were slightly cooler than at present.
If neither climate-change-induced extreme heat nor drought is responsible for 2025’s early start to the fire season, what other causes might be found? Several factors are likely responsible for Wisconsin’s January and February fires, some briefly mentioned by Kaeding in her WPR story, and at least one ignored entirely.
Among the contributing factors for the early wildfire outbreak in Wisconsin that Kaeding acknowledged were demographics and human ignition.
“People burning debris caused almost half of all fires so far this year,” Kaeding reported. “[DNR] board chair Bill Smith highlighted an increasing trend of more development in forested areas amid an influx of retirees or people working remotely.
“Volker Radeloff, a forest and wildlife ecology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the interface of wild land and urban areas accounts for roughly 10 percent of the state that’s potentially at risk of wildfires,” said Kaeding.
“UW-Madison researchers have found the number of homes where vegetation and homes meet or intermingle has grown 33.6 percent since 1990 to nearly 586,000 homes in Wisconsin.”
More people moving to areas historically prone to wildfires, negligently burning trash or leaves, embers escaping from outdoor grills and wood fires, sparks from equipment, discarded cigarette butts, and even arson, lead to more fires.
We have the ignition source, and we also have the fuel. Although the Wisconsin DNR has done a great deal in recent years to remove timber from the forests under its stewardship, in 2020, the most recent year for which it issued a full report, there remained a backlog of more than 16,000 acres of forest in need of thinning.
…there is no long-term trend in increasing numbers of fires, larger fires, or fires arriving earlier.
In addition, because in recent years Wisconsin has received above-average precipitation, plant growth, trees, and brush alike have been lush.
When those plants dry over the summer, it creates more fuel for wildfires, both in the forests and, if brush and trees aren’t cut back and managed in the urban/rural interface, in and around expanding urban areas.
With more fuel and more sources of ignition, it is completely unsurprising that the wildfire season came early to Wisconsin in 2025.
But the important point to remember is that there is no long-term trend in increasing numbers of fires, larger fires, or fires arriving earlier. As a result, climate change cannot be reasonably blamed for this year’s early wildfire outbreak.
The state of Wisconsin has good data on precipitation, wildfire history and trends, and population changes. Kaeding and WPR have done their listeners a disservice by not availing themselves of and presenting this information before running another in a long line of false climate disaster fairy tales.
Top image via WSAW NewsChannel/YouTube screencap
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