Across huge swaths of the planet, this year has started off hot, dry and on fire. Record blazes have raged out of control in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, sweeping across Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela and Colombia. The US West, stuck in a megadrought that’s left the land parched, has been hit particularly hard. Just this week, a fast-moving wildfire ripped through a town in California’s Orange County, spurring nearly 1,000 evacuations and destroying homes in the wealthy enclave. In Colorado Springs, blazes killed a woman at a mobile-home park Thursday and forced the city’s airport to briefly close. Already, 2022 is taking its place in a pantheon of years that have seen the nature of fire change — and all parts of the world fall […]