CRS InFocus Report: Wildfire Statistics - Updated 2 December 2022

Katie Hoover and Laura A. Hanson updated (2 December 2022) this CRS InFocus report: 'Wildfire Statistics'. 

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Introduction
Wildfires are unplanned fires, including lightning-caused fires, unauthorized human-caused fires, and escaped prescribed fire projects. States are responsible for responding to wildfires that begin on nonfederal (state, local, and private) lands, except for lands protected by federal agencies under cooperative agreements. The federal government is responsible for responding to wildfires that begin on federal lands. The Forest Service (FS)—within the U.S. Department of Agriculture—carries out wildfire management and response across the 193 million acres of the National Forest System (NFS). The Department of the Interior (DOI) manages wildfire response for more than 400 million acres of national parks, wildlife refuges and preserves, other public lands, and Indian reservations.

Wildfire statistics help to illustrate past U.S. wildfire activity. Nationwide data compiled by the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) indicate that the number of annual wildfires is variable but has decreased slightly over the last 30 years and the number of acres affected annually, while also variable, generally has increased (see Figure 1). Since 2000, an annual average of 70,072 wildfires has burned an annual average of 7.0 million acres. The acreage figure is more than double the average annual acreage burned in the 1990s (3.3 million acres), although a greater number of fires occurred annually in the 1990s (78,600 average).

From 2012 to 2021, there were an average of 61,289 wildfires annually and an average of 7.4 million acres impacted annually. In 2021, 58,968 wildfires burned 7.1 million acres.

As of December 2, 2022, around 64,100 wildfires have impacted 7.3 million acres this year; nearly half of those acres were in Alaska (3.1 million acres).

The number of fires and acreage burned are indicators of the annual level of wildfire activity. However, these numbers may be misleading with respect to their impact on human development or communities since many fires may occur in large, relatively undeveloped areas. Acreage burned also does not indicate the severity of the wildfire, the degree of impact upon forests or soils, or other ecological effects.

Most wildfires are human-caused (89% on average from 2017 to 2021), although the wildfires caused by lightning tend to be slightly larger and burn more acreage (52% of the average acreage burned from 2017 to 2021 was ignited by lightning).

In 2021, 73% of the nationwide acreage burned by wildfires was on federal lands (5.2 million acres; Table 1). The other 27% of the acreage burned was on state, local, or privately owned lands. Fires on these lands (44,960) accounted for 76% of total fires. Of the federal acreage burned nationwide in 2021, 79% (4.1 million acres) burned on FS land and 19% (1.0 million acres) burned on DOI land (Figure 3).

More wildfires occur in the East (including the central states), but the wildfires in the West are larger and burn more acreage (including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming). In 2021, just over 23,000 wildfires burned approximately 6.2 million acres in the West, compared with the over 35,000 fires that burned just under 1.0 million acres in the East. In the East (where there is less federal acreage), most of the fires occur on nonfederal lands, whereas in the West most of the fires occur on federal lands (see Figure 4). In 2021, 73% (0.7 million acres) of the acreage burned in the East was on nonfederal land, whereas 80% (4.9 million acres) of the acreage burned in the West was on federal land.

Resources 
Another metric useful for assessing wildfire activity is the extent that resources—personnel, equipment—are engaged in wildfire suppression. A proxy for resource commitments is the nationwide Preparedness Level (PL) scale, which ranges from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). The higher PLs indicate significant commitment of shared resources. In 2021, the PL was at the highest level for 68 days, the longest since at least 2000. 

Wildfire Damages 
Although wildfires may have a beneficial impact on ecological resources, wildfires also may have devastating impacts, especially for communities affected by wildfire activity. Therefore, statistics showing the level of destruction a wildfire causes can provide useful metrics, such as acres burned or impacted, lives lost (firefighters and civilians), and structures (residential, commercial, and other) destroyed. In 2021, nearly 6,000 structures were burned in wildfires, the majority of which occurred in California (see Table 2). 

Conflagrations
Of the 1.5 million wildfires that have occurred since 2000, 237 exceeded 100,000 acres burned and 15 exceeded 500,000 acres burned. Only a small fraction of wildfires become catastrophic, and a small percentage of fires accounts for the vast majority of acres burned. For example, only about 1% of wildfires become conflagrations—raging, destructive fires—but predicting which fires will “blow up” into conflagrations is challenging and depends on a multitude of factors, such as weather and geography. In 2021, 2% of wildfires were classified as large or significant (943); 38 exceeded 40,000 acres in size; and 13 exceeded 100,000 acres. In context, there were slightly more large or significant wildfires in 2020 (999), but even more in 2017 (1,409). There have been 1,065 large or significant fires annually on average from 2017 through 2021.

Issues for Congress
Issues for Congress include the strategies and resources used for wildfire prevention, mitigation, and management, and the impact of wildfires on both the quality of life and the economies of communities surrounding wildfire activity. Other issues relate to post-wildfire recovery and site restoration. Congress also considers the total federal cost of wildfire management, including the cost of suppression operations; these costs vary annually and are difficult to predict.

For more information

 CRS In Focus IF10732, Federal Assistance for Wildfire Response and Recovery, and

 CRS Report R40884, Wildfires: CRS Experts.

Enjoy!

"When budgets look good, we need to prepare for bad times. When budgets look bad, we need to prepare for worse times." - @ass_deans

Comments

[EJ Hanford]

Hot off the press:
For 400 years, Indigenous tribes buffered climate's impact on wildfires in the American Southwest
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-years-indigenous-tribes-buffered-climate.html
Paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3221

[EJ Hanford]

Smokey Bear became one of the most effective advertising campaigns ever! But the resulting shift in "fighting" wildfires has resulted in an unfortunate legacy.
Frequency of burns was shifted from decades to millennia - with more fuel accumulating in the interim times leading to more intense wildfires that engulf larger areas.
Good to see the US Forest Service rethinking their strategy.