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Scientific American

February 27, 2017

1 min read

Humans Start Most Wildfires

People are responsible for much of the rising cost and ecological damage that wildfires impose

By Amanda Montañez & Mark Fischetti

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Credit: Amanda Montañez (data visualizations), Mapping Specialists (ecoregion base map); Source: “Human-Started Wildfires Expand the Fire Niche across the United States,” by Jennifer K. Balch et al., in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; February 27, 2017

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Amanda Montañez has been a graphics editor at Scientific American since 2015. She produces and art directs information graphics for the Scientific American website and print magazine. Montañez has a bachelor's degree in studio art from Smith College and a master's in biomedical communications from the University of Toronto. Before starting in journalism, she worked as a freelance medical illustrator.

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Mark Fischetti has been a senior editor at Scientific American for 17 years and has covered sustainability issues, including climate, weather, environment, energy, food, water, biodiversity, population, and more. He assigns and edits feature articles, commentaries and news by journalists and scientists and also writes in those formats. He edits History, the magazine's department looking at science advances throughout time. He was founding managing editor of two spinoff magazines: Scientific American Mind and Scientific American Earth 3.0. His 2001 freelance article for the magazine, "Drowning New Orleans," predicted the widespread disaster that a storm like Hurricane Katrina would impose on the city. His video What Happens to Your Body after You Die?, has more than 12 million views on YouTube. Fischetti has written freelance articles for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Fast Company, and many others. He co-authored the book Weaving the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, which tells the real story of how the Web was created. He also co-authored The New Killer Diseases with microbiologist Elinor Levy. Fischetti is a former managing editor of IEEE Spectrum Magazine and of Family Business Magazine. He has a physics degree and has twice served as the Attaway Fellow in Civic Culture at Centenary College of Louisiana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 2021 he received the American Geophysical Union's Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism, which celebrates a career of outstanding reporting on the Earth and space sciences. He has appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CNN, the History Channel, NPR News and many news radio stations. Follow Fischetti on X (formerly Twitter) @markfischetti

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