Wildfire threat is rising in the eastern United States

A new study based on over three decades of data from the eastern United States reveals a concerning trend: a rise in the number of wildfires. This development challenges the assumption that wildfire issues are predominantly a concern in the Western part of the country.

Study lead author Victoria Donovan is an assistant professor of Forest Management at the UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center. 

“It’s a serious issue that people aren’t paying enough attention to: We have a rising incidence of wildfires across several regions of the U.S., not only in the West,” said Professor Donovan.

“We’re allocating the majority of resources to fire suppression in the western part of the country, but we have evidence that other areas are going to need resources, too.” 

Studying eastern wildfires

The team used data from the federal Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Database, covering the years 1984 to 2020. This dataset helped quantify large wildfires that burned over 490 acres. The goal was to identify which regions had the largest fires and most land burned during the study period.   

The study was primarily focused on the Eastern Temperate Forests, stretching from Michigan to eastern Texas. This region showed a heightened wildfire risk, particularly in its southern and eastern parts.

“The eastern U.S. has the most expansive wildland-urban interface in the country and thus is at high risk from wildfire,” said Donovan. “The thought behind this research was that if there are signals that wildfires are increasing, we need to understand what those changes look like.” 

Major factors of eastern wildfires

Particularly in the Southeast, noted Donovan, the data showed increasing trends in wildfire numbers, the size of the events, total hectares burned, shifts in seasonality, and overall increases in the annual probability of large wildfires. 

“We didn’t see the same trends in the northern part of the region we examined, but that doesn’t mean there were no wildfires there. This data only included large wildfires, so smaller fires may have been occurring in that time.” 

Professor Donovan said that three major factors influence wildfire regimes, which are the natural fire patterns in any given ecosystem.  

“The first is the ignition pattern, or what starts the fires. The second is changes in vegetation or fuel patterns, and then you have climate characteristics. We don’t address the drivers of the trends in this study, but it’s hard to talk about changing conditions without considering that climate may be a factor.” 

Human ignitions 

As far as ignition patterns are concerned, Donovan said human ignitions still make up the majority of wildfires; but this is unsurprising in these areas, especially, being home to the majority of the country’s population.

“It’s not necessarily human ignitions driving the trend of increasing wildfire patterns. In other words, we’re not seeing an indication that there are proportionally more human-caused ignitions than there have been in the past.” 

“In the Southern Coastal Plain, which includes much of Florida, lightning ignitions played an important role, too, contributing more to the total area burned in the ecoregion despite being a less frequent cause of large wildfire ignition.” 

Future implications 

Ultimately, Professor Donovan says the study highlights the need for proactive management of forested land and individual preparedness for people living in the eastern United States. 

“We don’t have the expansive wildfire problem that the western U.S. does yet, so this is also an opportunity to get ahead of the problem and prepare for shifting wildfire patterns before we start seeing the frequent destructive fires that we’re seeing in the West.”

“We’re hopeful that this study will spur more research into understanding changing wildfire patterns in the east, but also that it will help to support an increase in prescribed fire management and motivate people to better prepare for wildfire in their location by hardening their homes and making escape plans.” 

The study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. 

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