Human and infrastructure exposure to large wildfires in the United States

Arash Modaresi Rad, John T. Abatzoglou, Jason Kreitler, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Amir AghaKouchak, Nicholas Hudyma, Nicholas J. Nauslar and Mojtaba Sadegh ()
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Arash Modaresi Rad: Boise State University
John T. Abatzoglou: University of California, Merced
Jason Kreitler: US Geological Survey
Mohammad Reza Alizadeh: McGill University
Amir AghaKouchak: University of California, Irvine
Nicholas Hudyma: Boise State University
Nicholas J. Nauslar: National Interagency Fire Center
Mojtaba Sadegh: Boise State University

Nature Sustainability, 2023, vol. 6, issue 11, 1343-1351

Abstract: Abstract An increasing number of wildfire disasters have occurred in recent years in the United States. Here we demonstrate that cumulative primary human exposure—the population residing within the perimeters of large wildfires—was 594,850 people from 2000 to 2019 across the contiguous United States (CONUS), 82% of which occurred in the western United States. Primary population exposure increased by 125% in the CONUS in the past two decades; it was noted that there were large statistical uncertainties in the trend analysis due to the short study timeline. Population dynamics from 2000 to 2019 alone accounted for 24% of the observed increase rate in human exposure, and an increased wildfire extent drove the majority of the observed trends. In addition, we document the widespread exposure of roads (412,155 km) and transmission powerlines (14,835 km) to large wildfires in the CONUS, with a relative increase of 58% and 70% in the past two decades, respectively. Our results highlight that deliberate mitigation and adaptation efforts to help societies cope with wildfires are ever more needed.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41893-023-01163-z

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