7 Wildfire Facts

According to the National Park Service, nearly 85% of wildfires in the United States are started by humans.

If humans didnt exist, wildfires would mostly be started by lightning strikes.

According to the Global Forest Watch, we have lost over 138 million hectares of global forest cover in the last decade to wildfire.

After a severe fire, timely reforestation is critical: depending on fire severity and the local climate, it can take a few years to a decade for plants to establish in a burn scar. And the plants that do grow may not be native, leading to vegetation type conversion, such as from native forest to shrubland.

Fire prevention is a proactive, interdisciplinary set of strategies that aim to reduce the risk of forest fires. One well-studied management technique is prescribed burning, which is the careful use of fire to meet specific objectives — such as reducing fuels on the ground by burning specific areas in the understory of a forest.

Climate Change is a threat multiplier that intensifies extreme weather events and environmental conditions such as drought, hotter temperatures, and pest and disease outbreaks. These contribute to longer and more severe fire seasons by facilitating drier and warmer conditions and increasing fuel loads (the total amount of combustible material in a defined area).

Today, forest and grassland animal and plant communities have never been more exposed to severe wildfire. Catastrophic fires induce widespread tree mortality that results in reduced biodiversity and extensive habitat loss for wildlife, including many threatened and endangered species.