The number of buildings threatened by wildfires across the contiguous United States could nearly triple by 2060, according to a study published in Nature Communications. Researchers estimate that an average of 300,000 buildings could be damaged or destroyed by midcentury under a scenario in which current trends continue.
The team, from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, combined climate models with land-use patterns to assess wildfire risk to structures in the lower 48 states. The authors examined a future in which climate change, forest management and development in fire-prone areas continue to contribute to risk.
The West is projected to account for a disproportionate share of burned land. Between 2023 and 2060, the total area burned there could exceed 1 billion hectares. Central U.S. grasslands could also experience increased fire activity, with as many as 111 million hectares burned over the same period. In the East, the area burned could increase five-fold by 2060, pointing to a widening gap between perceived safety and changing fire risk, the researchers wrote.
The study’s lead author, Virginia Iglesias, director of Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that the location of development is a major factor in the risk. The researchers projected continued growth in fire-prone areas and found high risk in some socioeconomically vulnerable Western communities. Iglesias noted that these communities may have fewer resources for prevention and recovery, and less secure access to insurance.
Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the study, described the combination of land-use data and climate models as a useful approach. He cautioned, however, that the models do not account well for wind, which has fueled some recent destructive urban fires. As a result, risks in some places could be greater than the projections suggest.
Some areas of California and Colorado require new homes to meet fire codes based on local risk. However, the study notes that there is no region-wide or federal standard for construction in the wildland-urban interface, where homes meet flammable grasslands and forests. Existing rules also do not address older homes built before those standards took effect.
The authors used a business-as-usual scenario to show what could happen if the country does not take further action, while acknowledging that some states are already introducing mitigation measures. Iglesias said that continuing current practices would leave more homes exposed as climate, land management and development patterns change.
Sources: Inside Climate News.