Widespread Wildfires Over the Western United States in 2020 Linked to Emissions Reductions During COVID-19

Widespread wildfires struck the western United States in 2020, damaging properties and threating human lives. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, which disrupted human activities. Here, we investigate the effects of the emissions reductions during the pandemic on fire weather in 2020 over the western United States by using an earth system model together with observations. We show that reductions in aerosols dominate the increases in wildfire risks, whereas greenhouse gas decrease counteracts this influence. The aerosol emissions reductions increased surface air temperature and decreased precipitation and relative humidity due to a weakened moisture transport, which explains one-third of the observed increase in wildfire risks during August-November over the western United States in 2020. This study suggests that COVID-19-related emissions reductions have an unexpected influence on wildfires, highlighting a different but important role of human activities in affecting wildfire risks.