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Organized Oral Session

Hybrid Session

Session: : The Future of Fire: Sociocultural and Biophysical Contexts for Fire Stewardship Under Climate Change

OOS 67-2 - Fires of unusual size: Future of extreme and novel wildfire in a warming continental United States (2020-2060)

Thursday, August 10, 2023

3:45 PM – 4:00 PM PDT

Location: 255

Presenting Author(s)

JS

Jilmarie J. Stephens

University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, Colorado, United States

Co-author(s)

MJ

Maxwell Joseph

Natural Capital Exchange
VI

Virginia Iglesias

Research Scientist
University of Colorado Boulder, United States
TT

Ty Tuff, n/a

Data Scientist
Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab, United States
AM

Adam L. Mahood

USDA-ARS, Colorado, United States
IR

Imtiaz Rangwala

Research Scientist
North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, United States
JW

Jane Wolken

University Deputy Director
North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center
JB

Jennifer K. Balch

Director Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESIIL), Associate Professor
CIRES/Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, United States

Observed increases in wildfire activity across the contiguous United States (U.S.) and the link to warming make it imperative to understand how fire regimes will change in the near future. Simultaneously homes are being built in high-risk fire zones, with increasing chances of human-related ignitions. By 2020-2060, we project an average increase in the number of fires (+56%) and burned area (+59%) across the U.S. compared to the historical period (1984-2019). For the largest fire events, we find nearly ubiquitous increases across the U.S. (average +63%). We predicted novel fire regimes in places that have not seen severe or extreme fire behavior in the past, predominantly in the eastern U.S. For this work, we use a Bayesian statistical model that includes projections of where people will be located on the landscape and future atmospheric conditions from downscaled climate model simulations using a moderate warming trajectory (RCP 4.5), to make predictions regarding the number, size of the largest fire, and area burned by wildfires in each Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) level-3 ecoregion across the U.S. from 2020-2060. Our results suggest that climate change in the coming decades will drive more frequent occurrences of fires in regions where wildfire was rare (i.e., 71% increase in the eastern U.S.), and unprecedented increases in the size of the largest fires in regions where fires were common (i.e., in the western U.S). We need to prepare communities and fire managers for more extreme fires and for fires in places that have not seen them before.