A new video by Climate Desk explains "how climate change is fueling wildfires" in the U.S. West. The truth is a good bit more complicated, which James West attests to in the accompanying text:
In this video, Matthew Hurteau—assistant professor of forest resources at Penn State University—explains how warming temperatures, prolonged drought, and a century’s worth of fire suppression policy are “priming the system to make it more flammable.
Climate Desk produced a longer, more detailed explainer earlier in the summer titled, "How climate change makes wildfires worse." While I wouldn't discount climate change as a factor, it's highly arguable whether global warming should be highlighted as a major driver of western wildfires. For a more sophisticated take, see this recent post by Andy Revkin at his New York Times Dot Earth blog, which opens:
Assessing the drivers of wildfire trends in the American West these days can be akin ...
