Country Life

This year’s wildfire season will be just as intense as last year, forecasters predict.

AccuWeather forecasters are predicting an “above normal” wildfire season this year which typically runs from May to October. By early May, wildfires had already burned more than 1.1 million acres, more than twice the number burned by that time last year.

Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok told Changing America that early predictions for this fire season point to there being between 68,000 and 72,000 wildfires with total land burned peaking at around 8.1 to 8.3 million acres.

But those numbers could change depending on human activity, Pastelok added. Nearly 85 percent of all wildfires are set by humans, according to data from the National Park Service.