A third reason for the more frequent and intense fires is that there is more fuel. Fires today burn twice as many acres and for twice as long as they did in the 1990s. Before western settlers arrived, fires used to happen often and naturally, which helped forests regenerate and also made less fuel available for future fires. For the past century fires have tended to be quickly suppressed. This has led to a build-up of dry brush, and makes the average wildfire much likelier to turn into a raging mega-fire. There have been efforts to make the forests safer, through thinning them and controlled burns. But they have been stymied by a lack of resources—which the forests service has tended to use up fighting wildfires—and complaints about smoke from planned burns.
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