Spokane, Wash., saw the worst wildfires in the state’s history this weekend, bringing Washington State’s total wildfire destruction to about 450,000 acres this summer. The fires in Spokane, a group of three separate blazes collectively called the Spokane Complex Fires, began last Saturday. Though wildfires are often associated with the West Coast’s dry summers, climate change is putting more and more places at risk of wildfires as increasingly hot air sucks moisture from forests. One 2024 study found that extreme wildfires happen twice as often now as they did two decades ago. “[Wildfires] are burning with much different fire behaviors and burning much larger areas, and they’re burning almost year-round,” Smithwick says.