Ash-covered cars still line the highway in Lahaina, Hawaii, where only days ago, hundreds of people tried in vain to escape from a fast-moving and fatal wildfire, like a scene out of a nightmare.

In Canada, raging fires are still burning through more than 30 million acres of boreal forests, spewing noxious smoke and choking nearby communities with some of the worst air quality on Earth.

And in Rhodes, Greece, more than 20,000 people fled for safety last month as flames fed on overgrown forests amid triple-digit temperatures, threatening historic villages.

While the world sits stunned by the chaos and destruction of these fires, experts say such disasters are becoming increasingly likely as warmer temperatures, human development, land-use policies, and other factors conspire to create conditions ripe for flames — even in seemingly unexpected places.

“We have a lot of fire in our future, and all kinds of environments are going to be subjected to it, including urban areas that thought they were more or less immune,” said Stephen Pyne, a fire historian and emeritus professor at Arizona State University. “What doesn’t burn is going to be subjected to smoke.”

It’s something Pyne has come to think of as the “Pyrocene” — a new age of fire activity in the planet’s history not unlike the Ice Age. Last year, a United Nations report warned that the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 50% globally by the end of the century, and that governments are largely unprepared. Even the Arctic —

previously all but exempt from the threat — faces growing wildfire risk because of climate change and other factors, the report said. “We keep thinking it’s a fluke — it’s not,” Pyne said.

On Maui, strong winds from a nearby hurricane met with drought-dried vegetation on the western side of the island to fuel the intense fire in Lahaina, which quickly spread to homes and structures as embers swirled in 80 mph gusts.

But while climate change played a role in some of those elements, the disaster was also compounded by government policies, communication failures and other issues, said Lisa Benton-Short, a professor of geography at George Washington University who studies urban and environmental issues.

“Climate change doesn’t really explain the catastrophic nature of the fire, and for that I think we have to look deeper at a variety of social, economic and political factors that have exacerbated vulnerabilities,” she said.