Every year in the U.S., billions of dollars are spent on wildfire suppression and risk reduction. The five federal fire agencies — Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Fish & Wildlife Service — spent a combined $4.4 billion (2021) and $3.5 billion (2022) in wildfire suppression alone, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). The USFS announced in February that it would be investing nearly $500 million more in its “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis” 10-year strategy focusing on 21 priority landscapes across the West.
Despite the numerous projects and strategies billions in taxpayer monies have funded, one thing hasn’t changed over the past decade: Humans are still the main cause of wildfires — and numbers have worsened since 2014.
Air quality publication HouseFresh analyzed NIFC data from 2023 and ranked the causes of wildfires by number of occurrences. Of the recorded fires, 72.6 percent were directly caused by humans.
The bulk of last year’s wildfires were caused by debris burning and open burning, resulting in 1,302 wildfires. That is an increase from the 1,120 fires started by debris and open burning in 2022. Equipment and vehicle use, power generation/transmission/distribution, and arson were the next listed causes of wildfires in 2023 at 507, 390, and 364 respectively.
“The balance between human and natural fires has almost reversed since 2014, although the trend has not been smooth,” the HouseFresh report said. “The proportion of human-caused wildfires grew significantly in 2015, 2016 and 2020, peaking at 77.2 percent in 2020.”
To no one’s surprise, California leads the nation in number of acres burned by wildfires. The state totaled 344,878 acres burned, followed by Alaska at 295,105 acres and Arizona at 218,286 acres. Arizona led the nation, however, in the biggest increase in acres from 147,553 acres in 2022 to 218,286 acres in 2023. Southeast Fairbanks County in Alaska was the leading county in acres burned in 2023 at 141,399 acres.
“Alaska suffered the second-most land damage in 2023, despite the largest annual reduction in acres — down 2,818,744 acres from 3,113,849 in the previous, record-breaking year,” the report says. “Unfortunately, many places where fires burn are hard to reach; at the same time, permafrost and surface fuels make Alaska’s wildfires particularly pollutive.”
~ The full report’s posted on the HouseFresh website.
Every year in the U.S., billions of dollars are spent on wildfire suppression and risk reduction. The five federal fire agencies — Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Fish & Wildlife Service — spent a combined $4.4 billion (2021) and $3.5 billion (2022) in wildfire suppression alone, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). The USFS announced in February that it would be investing nearly $500 million more in its “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis” 10-year strategy focusing on 21 priority landscapes across the West.
Am disappointed to see your site fall into the climate change
philosophy. Blaming carbon emissions as a marker of fire hazard after
noting that most fires are the result of human carelessness just
doesn’t pass the smell test.
Too bad to lose confidence in what you have to say as your research
and articles were very informative and appeared to be based upon reason and true research.
Sorry.
Bill Gabbert was writing here about “climate change” more than 16 years ago.
You can read a page or three about it here.
Or 17 years ago:
[Gabbert in 2008 on climate change]
You just now noticed that climate change is a “topic” in wildland fire?
Good comment Bob, agreed.
Human caused can be broken down further into (at least) arson, negligence and just an honest mistake..those last two might get blurry. I’m curious of the human caused starts how many were arson. Of course that’s very hard to pin down as arson is not that hard to do but hard to prove. Educating the public more on the dangers of wildfire starts in order to help prevent stupidity would be well worth the time…as in hey guys maybe don’t have a gender reveal party using tanerite in dry grass on a windy day. Unfortunately educating people into using common sense now needs to be a thing.
I’m guessing that lightning and volcanos are the ONLY non-human caused wildfires.
Meteors and coal seams.
(Would squirrels on electric fences count?)
Earthquakes initiating landslides producing sparks have also started wildfires. Any rock fall would have the potential to spark a wildfire.
I am trying to remember when that happened, but I can’t find it, Robert. Have you got a link?
The 2012 Lighthouse Fire in Utah
Pictures at this link
That site lists several other examples. I’m not surprised that Riverside County shows up more than once. It’s a huge county, lots of dry brush and rocks, and subject to earthquakes.
wildfiretoday.com/2012/08/28/rock-started-fire
Are we surprised that human caused ignitions is the leader? Few of us engaged in suppression and prevention since the 1970’s would find this trend confirming our historic observations. As the population increases so does the increase in ignition opportunity, people desire to live, work and have a lifestyle in areas that were not necessarily prone to human ignition frequency.
A century plus of wildfire suppression on federal lands instead of more rigorous management in the form of RX fire has contributed to the volatile fuel buildup to the point that some burning near communities is so problematic that RX fire cannot be used.
In my observations of major incidents the public expectation is that the federal agencies are there to save the community when in fact that is not their primary responsibility and secondly they do not have the resources for this function, this is due to a lack of education about the function of the big 5 role and responsibility.
Fuels reduction with the corresponding reduction of ignitions in over age and volatile fuels will be further impacted in a negative manner when we have a Sheriff arrest a Burn Boss because he or she had an escape of a prescribed fire. This action should make any person think twice about obtaining Burn Boss qualifications which will further contribute to our troubling dynamics!