Climate variability is reshaping Pennsylvania wildfire risk

“I saw a lot of smoke and the whole hillside on fire,” said Jake Novitsky, a fire forester with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ (DCNR) Bureau of Forestry.

Novitsky was among the responders at the scene of the May 4 brush fires near Vulcan Hill in Mahanoy City, where three separate fires burned an estimated 15 to 17 acres.

“The mountain was right there, and the slope was hurting us the most,” he said.

The steep terrain forced firefighters to work uphill as the separate ignitions merged, pushing flames through dry leaves and wind‑stressed fuels. Ground crews deployed UTVs, brush trucks and tankers, while aerial support worked to slow the spread from above.

But officials say the conditions that shaped this fire — dry fuels, erratic rainfall and extended drought — are no longer outliers. They are becoming the new baseline.

Drought, variability and a landscape primed to burn

According to DCNR Bureau of Forestry statistics, Pennsylvania recorded 1,536 wildfires in 2025, burning 5,527 acres. These 2025 statistics reflect an active fire season that exceeded the state’s 10-year average of 1,257 fires and 4,312 acres burned annually.

These fires did not emerge in isolation. They reflect broader environmental trends now shaping fire behavior across Pennsylvania.

Schuylkill County is currently under a drought warning, and Novitsky said the region’s recent rainfall has done little to restore moisture in forest fuels.

“The rain hasn’t really amounted to too much,” he said. “It’s just enough to keep things in check, but not replenish what we haven’t been getting. We’re not really out of the woods yet.”

“If you’re in drought conditions like we are in now, fire can spread really fast,” he added. “They could go the size of a football field in minutes.”

The more important shift is not simply dryness — it’s inconsistency.

Across Pennsylvania, precipitation is increasingly arriving in short, intense bursts followed by longer dry intervals. This pattern leaves vegetation quick to ignite, even when seasonal totals look normal.

“We’ll get rain for a week or two, then go two or three weeks without any precipitation at all,” Novitsky said. “That’s what really hurts us.”

Landscape and fire ecology researcher Dr. Erica Smithwick says the pattern reflects a broader shift in eastern fire behavior, in which variability itself is becoming a driver of risk.

“We are starting to see more variability in precipitation, which creates more dry periods between rainfall events,” she said.

A shifting fire season

These changing conditions are also reshaping when Pennsylvania burns.

Historically, Pennsylvania’s wildfire season peaked in spring. But both researchers and forestry officials say that the pattern is changing.

“We’ve been seeing an increase in fire activity in our fall fire season,” Novitsky said, linking the shift to summer rainfall deficits that carry dry fuels into autumn.

Smithwick says this seasonal shift can compound fire risk. Wet spring conditions can promote vegetation growth, which later dries into abundant fuel when late-season drought conditions arrive.

“That’s the worst-case scenario for us in the East,” she said.

Ignitions are human, but conditions decide the outcome

While climate and fuel conditions shape how fires behave, most wildfires in Pennsylvania still begin with people. The DCNR reports that debris burning is the leading cause of wildfires in the state.

“People are the main source of ignition in these fires,” Smithwick said. But she added that ignition alone does not determine impact. Once a fire starts, weather and fuel conditions largely determine intensity and spread.

“In the East, climate is stacking the deck and making those fires more likely to be severe and more likely to spread,” she said.

Schuylkill County Fire Chiefs Association President Frank Zangari Jr. said many of these incidents are preventable and often linked to outdoor burning practices.

“I wish there were more municipalities that did not have outside burning,” he said. “These fires don’t care if your house burns.”

“Fire doesn’t care,” he emphasized.

Researchers say the concern is that once a fire starts, changing climate conditions are making outcomes less predictable.

A volunteer system under increasing pressure

The same conditions that influence fire behavior are also testing the system responsible for responding to it. Schuylkill County’s firefighting force is almost entirely volunteer and becoming increasingly strained.

“Schuylkill County is 99.9% volunteer,” Zangari said.

In more than 50 years of service, he said he has seen a decline in volunteer numbers, even as operational demands have expanded.​“We don’t have the manpower we had in the ’70s and ’80s,” Zangari said. “Volunteers today are working multiple jobs, working out of the county, and working different shifts. At any given time, you may not have the manpower required for chasing brush fires.”

The May 4 fires, where multiple ignitions required simultaneous response across several departments, underscored this vulnerability.

“It hurts not only the response, but it also hurts the opportunity to stop the fire when it’s small,” he added.

He also pointed to the broader vulnerability of relying on an already stretched volunteer system.

“My biggest worry is while we’re fighting these brush fires, something happens where we have a house fire or serious motor vehicle accident.”

Fire context growing unpredictable

Researchers and forestry officials warn that Pennsylvania is entering a period of greater fire volatility shaped by drought, shifting rainfall patterns, longer fire seasons and human activity.

The concern is not simply that wildfires may become more common. It’s that the conditions influencing them are becoming less stable, making outcomes harder to predict and contain.

As conditions continue to shift, officials say the challenge will be adapting a system built for a different era of fire.