Wildfires may seem unpredictable, leaving random ruin in their wake. But it is based on science.
Continue readingClayton Fire burns more than 175 structures near Lower Lake, California
The fire is burning near the scars from three very large fires from 2015
Continue readingDamage assessment update: two recent California fires have each burned almost 900 structures
Updated damage assessments for two recent large wildfires in California revealed that a total of 1,770 structures burned on the two fires, including 888 on the Valley Fire south of Clearlake, and 882 on the Butte Fire south of Jackson.
For the purposes of this report, “structures” includes residences, outbuildings, and commercial properties.
Over 1,000 structures burned in two recent California wildfires
CAL FIRE has updated the list of the 20 most damaging fires in the state, ranked by the number of structures burned. Two recent fires made the list, but the information for those could still change since damage assessments are not yet complete.
The Valley Fire came in at number 9 with 603 structures destroyed so far, and the Butte Fire is number 14, with 408.
Map showing where structures have burned in wildfires
A publication released last year by the U.S. Forest Service titled Wildfire, Wildlands, and People: Understanding and Preparing for Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface has some interesting charts. The one above shows where in the United States structures have burned in wildfires.
The other chart shows that while the often-heard statement that “humans cause most wildfires” is true, that is not the case in all areas. In the Great Basin lightning is the primary cause of fires, and there are almost as many lighting fires as human caused fires in the Northwest, Southwest, and Rocky Mountains.
(Click on the charts to see larger versions.)
Measuring the severity of a fire season
By some measures the 2013 wildfire season in the United States was less severe than usual. In the lower 49 states this year to date there has been a decline in the number of fires, the number of acres burned, and the average size of fires. Sounds pretty good so far, right? But there was a sharp rise in the number of firefighters that were killed on fires — 34 so far this year.
Not only did the number of fatalities more than double over last year, according to the data from the National Interagency Fire Center, but the linear trend shows an increase since 1990. The wildland fire fatality statistics from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Fire Administration show even higher numbers for most years.
Of course more than half of the fatalities this year occurred on one fire, the Yarnell Hill Fire which killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. But if that terrible tragedy had not happened, there would still have been 15 fatalities, the same number from the previous year. Between 1990 and 2013 to date the average number of wildland fire deaths is 18 each year.
We can do better. We have to do better.
More wildfire statistics:
Below are some statistics on wildland fire occurrence in the United States from 1990 through today. The numbers are for the lower 49 states, which excludes Alaska, a state that in 2013 to date has had 609 fires that blackened 1,319,234 acres, about half the number of acres that burned in the other 49 states. Fire management in Alaska is very different from the rest of the country. Some fires there are aggressively suppressed, but many fires are not staffed at all, some are fought with small numbers of firefighters, and others only get attention in areas where a remote cabin is threatened. Including Alaska numbers with the rest of the country would skew the trend analysis.
