California's wildfire season is shifting, with more blazes after the traditional high-risk window, study finds

A firefighter is silhouetted in the glowing orange and yellow blaze of a wildfire as a helicopter above dumps a stream of water below.

Climate change is shifting wildfire seasons in North America, but the direction of the shift depends on the regional ecosystem, a new study shows.

The fire season in the northern boreal forests of Alaska and Canada have shifted forward, on average; prairie regions have seen little change; and the fire season in the arid West and California has extended further into late fall and winter. The findings were published Feb. 24 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.