The West burned more area while recorded fire counts declined
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
A screened 1992–2020 wildfire occurrence dataset showed a significant decline in annual fire frequency across the western United States even as burned area and damages increased. Human-caused ignitions declined strongly in California and Arizona but rose in Wyoming, suggesting a geographically variable relationship with population and land use.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
Fire management and policy should avoid collapsing ignition counts, fire size, area burned and ecological severity into a single trend. The drivers of more extensive burning may differ from the drivers of the number of ignition events.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
Trends depend on dataset reporting corrections, size classes and geography. A decrease in counts does not mean wildfire risk or severity has fallen, and the observed population correlations do not independently prove cause.
SOURCE
Madakumbura et al. · Earth's Future · western wildfire frequency assessment
View original evidence ↗
Western U.S. ignition trends tell a different story from the rise in burned area.
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