Trends in Fire Danger and Population Exposure along the Wildland–Urban Interface

The increased risk of wildfires and associated smoke exposure in the United States is a growing public health problem, particularly along the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI). Using the measure of fire danger, the Energy Release Component, we define fire danger as the onset and duration of fire season...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2021-12, Vol.55 (23), p.16257-16265
Main Authors: Peterson, Geoffrey Colin L, Prince, Steven E, Rappold, Ana G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Conservation of Natural Resources
Data Science
Engineering
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Fire exposure
Fire hazards
Fires
Forest & brush fires
Population growth
Public health
United States
Wildfires
Wildland-urban interface
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The increased risk of wildfires and associated smoke exposure in the United States is a growing public health problem, particularly along the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI). Using the measure of fire danger, the Energy Release Component, we define fire danger as the onset and duration of fire season, in the continental US, between 1979 and 2016. We then combine the measure of fire danger with census data to quantify changes in population fire exposure across the WUI. We determined that the largest increases in fire danger were observed in the Southwest, Intermountain, and Pacific Southwest regions. The increased fire danger, specifically during peak fire season, accounted for 6.1 more fires each year and 78,000 more acres burned each year, underscoring the link between fire danger and the risks of large fire occurrence and burn acreage. Finally, we observed significant population growth (121.2% between 1990 and 2010) within high-danger WUI areas, further implying significant increases in potential fire exposure.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.1c03835