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People are betting on wildfires on Polymarket. What could go wrong?

Lawmakers are warning that predictions markets could make a bad wildfire season worse.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The 2026 wildfire season on the West Coast is shaping up to be an especially bad one: In Oregon, more than 2 million acres have already burned, breaking a record set just a few years ago, in 2024. In neighboring Washington state, suburbs around the city of Spokane recently burned in an increasingly common example of fires reaching urban and suburban areas (as my colleague Caitlin Dewey covered recently). And the consequences are spreading far beyond where the fires are burning, with hazardous smoke from the Pacific Northwest drifting as far away as New England.

Much of this is a story about climate change, as increasingly dry, hot summers provide ample fuel for fires. But the crisis is also being made worse by the Trump administration: Staff cuts to the US Forest Service have left the agency stretched thin and unable to........

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