Fire, fire, fire. It was pretty much impossible to turn on a television or pick up a newspaper this week without seeing images of the huge wildfires that lit up Southern California like a tinderbox.

And while the scope of this fire was bad—forcing a million people from their homes and scorching 500,000 acres—it’s just one example of a severe drought plaguing the country. And the real story seems to be the possible role of global warming and the need for water, water, water.

Droughts are normal
Droughts are simply part of the natural climate cycle. And dry, hot SoCal is always highly susceptible to these fires, which happen with regularity. That said, the nation seems a bit more parched than usual.

South dries out and Great Lakes shrink
In fact as the fires burn on the West Coast, a severe drought is plaguing the Southeast.

Take Georgia—not a place you usually confuse with the Sahara—but it’s currently being crippled by a drought so nasty, experts say it comes around only once a century. Officials have asked that part of the region be declared a disaster area, something the U.S. government hasn’t done for a drought since 1977. Nearby neighbors in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama are also looking to the skies for rain.

Meanwhile, up north, the Great Lakes could also use a drink. The water levels in all five lakes are below normal, and could stay that way until spring. And out West, experts are worried about the shrinking mountain snow pack.
>> Check out these federal maps, which show huge areas of the nation currently suffering from drought conditions ranging from a little dry to downright thirsty., which show huge areas of the nation currently suffering from drought conditions ranging from a little dry to downright thirsty.

The big picture
The vast majority of scientists now believe in global warming and that the average temperature of the earth is slowly rising. And many say human activity is partly to blame. Oddly enough, experts also tend to believe global warming is actually going to make the world wetter—it’s just going to shift who gets wet. In short, more moisture at the poles, less toward the center.

What it means
If this holds true—if water gets scarcer and the country gets drier—images like those out of SoCal may become all too common. Already, there is evidence that wildfires in the West have been getting worse in the past two decades, consuming many times more land than they did in previous years.