Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
When I was a kid, summer used to mean fun at the beach and sultry evenings of fireflies and starry skies. Now it also means record-breaking wildfires, busted state budgets, and a growing list of medical problems caused by forest fire smoke.
For The Climate Advisor, that’s not background noise — it’s the signal — the lived context for anyone trying to keep their family, business, and community functioning in a hotter, smokier world. This post walks through three recent wildfire stories.
1. Fire Season Starts Early – Back again, bigger than ever.
I accidentally found an interesting article searching for 2026 fire season forecasts. The article is by Western Weather Group, who are a niche weather‑intelligence outfit that, according to their site… “…provides specialized weather forecasting for utilities, grid operators, and industries operating in high-risk weather environments.”
Drawing on their fire models, WWG sees clear signals for a rough 2026 U.S. fire season. Millions of acres have already burned and fire activity is well above the 10‑year average for this time of year. Predictions are lighting up big swaths of the West, the High Plains, and parts of the South for above‑normal fire risk through the summer. Thanks to stubborn drought, thin snowpack, and a hot, fast spring that dried out grasses and forests ahead of schedule—the stage is set for bigger, harder‑to‑fight fires and long‑distance health impacts from smoke.
The link between forest fires, deepening drought, and deteriorating air quality makes that case even more urgent—and the long-term drying across the American West shows no sign of slowing down.
2. Wildfires Are Torching State Budgets
The always excellent High Country News picks up the story at the statehouse. States like Oregon are seeing wildfire costs blow past historical budgets, with firefighting and recovery routinely running hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. When the smoke clears, legislatures are calling emergency sessions, raiding rainy-day funds, and pitting fire bills against everything from schools to healthcare.
What’s striking is how many states still rely on fragile funding sources—general funds, one-off fees, short-term federal help—to cover a problem that is clearly here to stay. The article highlights some emerging fixes, including dedicated wildfire accounts and targeted revenue streams to fund prevention and resilience instead of just suppression.
What’s also striking is that The Climate Advisor included this same topic 10 years ago in What’s Hot in Climate Change – August 2016!
3. Different Strokes for Smokey Folks
A great Eos article zooms past flames and balance sheets into the human body. They reviewed recent research that estimates wildfire smoke is associated with roughly 17,000 strokes per year in the United States, particularly among older adults. The research shows that as smoke exposure rises, stroke risk may rise with it.
The figure above from the study tells me that it is difficult to tease out exposure to small particles from forest fire smoke, versus other small particles from other sources of pollution. The uncertainty bars for the forest fire smoke are big and overlapping with the non-forest fire particulates, so this doesn’t tell me that much about the relative risk between particle types.
HOWEVER, it does show that ANY exposure to small particles, be they forest fire smoke or other, DO increase the risk of stroke. Thus, all the elderly and infirm persons exposed to climate-worsened, forest fire smoke will suffer. That much is clear.
Even if flames never get close, forest fire smoke can travel hundreds and thousands of miles from the fire, quietly degrading the health of people with underlying heart and lung issues. That concern dovetails with what we already know about heat stress and cardiovascular strain during extreme weather events—the two hazards often arrive together and compound each other.
Ozone is another often-overlooked piece of the puzzle. Ground-level ozone, worse on hot smoky days, has its own serious health risks. For households and businesses in smoke-prone regions, providing clean indoor air, is and will be, an essential part of summer planning.
What It All Adds Up To—and What’s Next
Put together, these stories show a coherent pattern: fire seasons that start earlier, burn longer, and hit harder—first in forests and state budgets, then in hospitals and people’s long-term health. For The Climate Advisor audience, the message is not “panic,” but “plan” — treat wildfire and smoke as recurring features of the summer landscape and build it into decisions about housing, business continuity, health, and community. Start with the basics: defensible space, clean-air strategies, go-bags, and evacuation plans, which are the foundation of wildfire preparedness.
The Climate Advisor will soon be updating its definitive “Surviving Wildfires” guide—covering how to adapt and stay safe during forest fires — so keep an eye out for that refreshed post coming soon!