# How weather and climate shape wildfire risk Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk.md Podcast: [MPR News with Angela Davis](https://stenobird.com/podcast/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489) Published: 2026-07-17T14:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2026/07/17/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/5/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/play.publicradio.org/podcast/o/minnesota/podcasts/angela-davis/2026/07/17/minnesota_wildfires_20260717_64.mp3?awCollectionId=apm-ADavis&awEpisodeId=01KXPAVZT3K8TR5DN92C1PKRJS Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489/episodes/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk Duration seconds: 2891 ## Resource Wildfires have burned thousands of acres across northern Minnesota, sending smoke into communities around the state and prompting air quality alerts. Live updates Get the latest information on wildfires in Minnesota MPR News guest host Kelly Gordon talks with meteorologists about the combination of heat, rainfall, humidity, wind and drought that can increase wildfire risk. They'll also discuss what this summer's weather patterns can tell us about the weeks ahead, how smoke travels hundreds of miles from fires and how a changing climate is influencing fire seasons in Minnesota. Guests: Ben Cathey is the chief meteorologist for MPR News. Sven Sundgaard is a meteorologist for MPR News. Mandy Thalhuber is a meteorologist for MPR News. Jeff Masters is a meteorologist who writes about extreme weather for Yale Climate Connections, a news service that focuses on climate change. He is a former hurricane hunter and the co-founder of the commercial weather service, Weather Underground. Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts , Spotify or RSS . Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489/episodes/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/mpr-news-with-angela-davis-239489/how-weather-and-climate-shape-wildfire-risk.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.