The situations aren't really comparable. The core issue in Siberia is that the cold slows decomposition and builds up a layer of peat [1]. As the ecosystem expe

The situations aren't really comparable. The core issue in Siberia is that the cold slows decomposition and builds up a layer of peat [1]. As the ecosystem experiences higher average temperatures and droughts, the peat not only dries out and combusts, it smolders underground for months or years at a time, sparking wildfires every time the humidity drops long enough to dry everything out again. At one point, more than a third of the USSR's electricity (if not power) came from peat fueled generators so we're talking millions of square miles of almost completely inaccessible forest floor covered with a meters thick layer of material that is literally a precursor to coal deposits and dirtier to boot. The only feasible way of mitigating these fires (burning the peat for power) accelerates the very environmental effects causing them! By comparison, California's ecology doesn't support peat formation and the PNW's access to the coast dampens the extreme weather that causes such extreme buildup (though it's becoming more and more of a problem). However, as you get deeper inland into Canada, Idaho, and Montana, the more the land starts to resemble Siberia so it's only a matter of time before we get similar wildfires. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat