  Wildfires are increasing in frequency and size across the western U.S., with
some of the deadliest fires in recorded history occurring in the last few
years. The public, as well as elected officials, use social media to convey
opinions and knowledge on topics that are impacting their communities. We
utilize the platform Twitter to assess connections of wildfire to climate
change during recent events and evaluate the differences in knowledge between
the public and their government officials. Results show some linkages of
wildfire cause and effect, although this relationship was not large (only 5%)
and was even lower at the governmental level (2%), suggesting that a broader
number of the public and government did not relate climate change to recent
extreme wildfires.
