The surging price tag of wildfires, in one chart

The wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year were likely the costliest blazes on record. The modern age of burning has been ignited by human hands.  Though wildfires are natural and necessary in many ecosystems, their expanding path of destruction in recent years has been worsened by all the different ways humanity has reshaped the environment. Cities have sprawled out farther, populations have grown, the global economy has expanded, natural fires have been suppressed, and the climate has warmed. Now, the pace of destruction from massive wildfires is accelerating. In a new study pu