Study Shows Fewer Fires Out West, Not More

Nature Communications published a new study on 10 February 2025,

“A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned”, Parks et al. (2025),

“…despite increasing area burned in recent decades,… a widespread fire deficit persists across a range of forest types and recent years with exceptionally high area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees.”

But hold on, we have seen some really bad fires over the past few years.

How can we have a "fire deficit?"

What do they mean by that?

See a full explanation of the above graph at this link.

“Wildland fire was common and widespread across many forests and woodlands in North America prior to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In subsequent decades, fire exclusion—the practice of preventing and suppressing nearly all wildland fires—occurred as the result of the disruption of traditional burning, livestock grazing, and active suppression of human- and lightning-ignited fires.

As a consequence, average annual area burned since the late 19th and early- to mid-20th centuries is generally less than that experienced under historical fire regimes across many North American forests, resulting in a widespread 20th century ‘fire deficit’ relative to earlier time periods.”

 

The impression is that we have been experiencing more fires, more frequently, and those fires have been more intense.

But this data shows that, while there have been the occasional big fire, overall the number and intensity of fires are down. Not just in the U.S. but worldwide.