What do the Lahaina, Marshall, and Camp wildfires have in common? In addition to being among the most destructive wildfires in recent history, they also moved incredibly quickly.
Wildfires are often talked about in terms of the acres they burn, or the number of structures they destroy. But new research is bringing attention to their speed – and evidence that they’re accelerating.
Taking advantage of dramatic improvements in satellite imagery, researchers behind a new paper in the journal Science looked at more than 60,000 fires in the U.S. between 2001 and 2020. What they found is a relatively small number of fast-moving fires – those growing more than 4,000 acres in a day – were responsible for 89% of structures damaged or destroyed. Troublingly, in the West they’ve also sped up by 249% over the study period.
“The fire spread rate is basically more than tripling in only 20 years,” said Adam Mahood, a researcher with the University of Colorado-Boulder’s EarthLab and one of the study’s authors. He pointed to climate change and the increase in faster-burning vegetation such as cheatgrass as likely factors.
“Reducing our carbon emissions to zero by 2050 is probably the most important thing we can do,” he said.
The paper also advocated for building codes “that incentivize the use of fire-resistant materials,” as well as developing evacuation plans for at-risk homes and fuels reduction efforts.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
