The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that whether we like it or not, the fire at Fort McMurray last week is connected to global warming. The Globe's Gary Mason writes that record temperatures are being associated with record-setting fires that are wiping out vast tracks of important timberlands around the world. The fact that we might have a problem in this regard no longer seems to be in dispute, says Mr. Mason. Forest fire season is now 2-1/2 months longer in the western United States than it was 30 years ago, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The same organization reports there has been a fourfold increase in the number of large forest fires in the American West in recent years. Across the globe it has increased 19 per cent, according to a study published in Nature Communications last year. A report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released in 2015 indicated these megafires "could increase as much as six times by mid-century as a result of man-made global warming," reported USA Today. Snow packs are at their lowest levels in the northern hemisphere in 50 years, says David Robinson, a climatologist at Rutgers University.