By late June, 72% of the US landmass was in drought or was classified as dry.

US agriculture department undersecretary Harris Sherman, who is in charge of the US Forest Service, told the July 2 Washington Post: “The climate is changing, and these fires are a very strong indicator of that.”

The heat wave is slated to get worse throughout July and August across much of the U.S.

The heat, a recently released study concludes, is caused by global warming. The study, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, found that global warming made the severe heat wave that afflicted Texas last year 20 times as likely as it would have been in the 1960s. For a summary of the study’s findings, check this article from the New York Times out.

For a fuller account of the many heat records that are being toppled this summer, check this out.