Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States

Discussion

Humans, the keystone fire species (29), play a primary role in spatially and temporally redistributing ignitions and resulting wildfires. We document that over 84% of the government-recorded wildfires were started by people from 1992 to 2012. Sixty percent of the total land area of the coterminous United States was dominated by human-started wildfires, whereas only 8% of the area was dominated by lightning fires. Humans tripled the length of the wildfire season, extending burning into the spring, fall, and winter months. During the spring, fall, and winter, people added more than 840,000 wildfires, a 35-fold increase over the number of lightning-started fires in those seasons. This expansion of the fire-niche was caused by human-related ignitions under higher fuel moisture conditions, compared with lightning-started fires. Moreover, during this 21-y record, large human-started wildfires increased significantly.

There was a strong national east–west dichotomy in the spatial distribution of human-started wildfires. Although human-started wildfires were pervasive across the United States (Fig. 1), the expansion of human-started wildfires relative to lightning-started fires was most dramatic in the eastern United States and central and southern California (Figs. 1 and 2C). Recent work for California confirms the important role of humans, with anthropogenic variables explaining half of the variability in fire probability over the past four decades (30). In contrast, lightning-started fires were found primarily in the intermountain west and Florida and occurred predominantly in the summer, reflecting national lightning strike patterns (31) (Fig. 2C). This finding supports other studies of human vs. lightning ignition sources that have found an important distinction between eastern and western United States fire patterns (10, 21) and drivers (32). Some explanations for this distinction include higher population and housing densities, lower proportions of public land, and more extensive land use and development in the eastern United States (33, 34), all of which could lead to more sources of anthropogenic ignitions. Synchrony between lightning activity and the seasonal nadir of fuel moisture in the western United States also likely contributes to these geographic differences. However, even with a projected increase in the number of lightning strikes as a result of anthropogenic climate change (50% by 2100) (35), humans would still remain the dominant ignition source across the majority of the United States land area. The majority of the wildfires requiring agency suppression in the east can be attributed to escaped fires from debris burning occurring in the spring months (or winter in Texas and the Gulf Coast) (Fig. 3). Between 1992 and 2012, wildfires caused by debris burning tended to be small (median fire size 0.4 ha, IQR: 0.14–1.62 ha), but still an important source of risk to surrounding ecosystems. At finer scales, there are also notable patterns in human- vs. lightning-started wildfires (Fig. S5). Increased wildfires can follow road networks (36), the wildland–urban interface (13), and boundaries between agricultural and forested areas (37), highlighting just a few examples of how human activities and cultural drivers provide ignitions that substantially change the distribution of fire across the United States (38).

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Fig. S5.

Visualization of how spatial patterns of human ignitions (red dots) vary across the United States. (A) In the southwest, human ignitions extend linearly along major highways (black lines) and into agricultural areas. (B) Urban development along the Colorado Front Range is a source of many fires in the wildland–urban interface. Stars indicate (from north) the cities of Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs. (C) Human-caused fires increase substantially as ecosystems transition from the agriculture-dominated Interior Plateau in western Kentucky to Appalachian forest in eastern Kentucky (black lines are ecological region level III boundaries).

Our findings reinforce the strong imprint of people on fire regimes through changes in wildfire seasonality, which has been documented globally (39). In the past few decades, early onset of warmer and drier conditions has promoted greater fire activity across the western United States (6, 7, 40). However, our study highlights the equally important role of human ignitions in changing modern fire regimes by increasing the fire season length to encompass the entire year. The vast majority (78%) of lightning-started fires occurred during the summer months, whereas 76% of human-started fires occurred during the spring, fall, and winter months. Moreover, this trend varies substantially by ecoregion, reflecting again the principle dichotomy between the eastern and western United States (Fig. 3). Human-started fires extend the fire season earlier in the east, and later in the west (Fig. 3 and Table S2). Observations suggest that climate change has extended the duration of the fire weather season across most of the globe, including parts of the United States by a couple of weeks over the past three decades (5, 9), whereas we show that human ignitions in the United States increased the length of the fire season by more than three mo. There was also a notable mark of American culture on the distribution of wildfires, with the peak day of wildfires occurring on July 4th, concurrent with Independence Day fireworks displays (Fig. 2). Indeed, Americans start over twice as many wildfires on July 4th as any other summer day. A similar cultural mark has also been demonstrated globally with a marked decline in wildfires on Sunday compared with other weekdays (41).

Thus, at the national scale, human ignitions dramatically expand the spatial and seasonal niche of fire. The key components that define the fire niche are ignition sources, fuel mass, and desiccation. By exploring the fire niche along these axes, our results show that lightning fires are primarily constrained to areas with a lightning-strike density of greater than 100 strikes per grid cell per month (0.04 strikes/km² per month) and are concurrent with drier fuels (< 15% fuel moisture) (Fig. 4). Human ignitions expand fires into regions with higher fuel moisture (Fig. 4) and higher NPP (Figs. S1 and S2), suggesting that humans create sufficient ignition pressure for wetter fuels to burn. As a consequence, human ignitions have expanded the fire niche into areas with historically low lightning-strike density, such as Mediterranean California, or low concurrence of lightning and dry conditions, such as Eastern Temperate Forests (Fig. 1).

Over the past two decades, there was a significant increase across the United States for both human- and lightning-caused large fires (Fig. S3). The significant increase in large lightning fires is driven primarily by fires in summer months (Fig. 5) in the Northwest Forested Mountains ecoregion of the western United States (Fig. S4). This finding is consistent with other studies that have demonstrated an increase in large fires across the western United States (6, 7, 40), likely as a consequence of changes in climate and fuels rather than ignitions. In contrast, the significant trend in human-caused fires is primarily driven by an increase in large fires during spring months (Fig. 5) in the Great Plains ecoregion of the United States (Fig. S4). This increasing trend suggests that earlier springs as a result of climate change (42, 43) may be interacting with human ignition sources to increase the risk of large fires in the central United States.

The strong year-to-year variability in human ignitions (Fig. S3 and S4) may reflect the degree to which human choices can affect fire regimes. However, interannual climate variability also influences fuel moisture, NPP, and short-term weather conditions that enable the spread of human-ignited wildfires (44). There was a significant temporal correlation between large human- and lightning-started fires (R = 0.75). This pattern has been observed previously in the western United States (23) and suggests that large-scale climate drivers affect the frequency of both human- and lightning-caused fires. It is unknown how human actions will be affected by hotter and drier conditions, potentially increasing or decreasing ignitions from land use, recreation, and other sources. Increased public awareness and focused policy and management, particularly in years with elevated fire risk associated with climatic anomalies, are needed to reduce the number of human-caused ignitions.

In conclusion, we demonstrate the remarkable influence that humans have on modern United States wildfire regimes through changes in the spatial and seasonal distribution of ignitions. Although considerable fire research in the United States has rightly focused on increased fire activity (e.g., larger fires and more area burned) because of climate change, we demonstrate that the expanded fire niche as a result of human-related ignitions is equally profound. Moreover, the convergence of warming trends and expanded ignition pressure from people is increasing the number of large human-caused wildfires (Fig. 5). Currently, humans are extending the fire niche into conditions that are less conducive to fire activity, including regions and seasons with wetter fuels and higher biomass (Figs. 3 and 4). Land-use practices, such as clearing and logging, may also be creating an abundance of drier fuels, potentially leading to larger fires even under historically wetter conditions. Additionally, projected climate warming is expected to lower fuel moisture and create more frequent weather conditions conducive to fire ignition and spread (45), and earlier springs attributed to climate change are leading to accelerated phenology (42). Although plant physiological responses to rising CO₂ may reduce some drought stress (46), climate change will likely lead to faster desiccation of fuels and increased risk in areas where human ignitions are prevalent.

Uncertainty remains regarding how anthropogenic climate change will alter wildfire activity geographically and seasonally (47, 48), particularly in areas where human-caused fires dominate. Moreover, the current wildland–urban interface, where houses intermingle with natural areas, constitutes 9% of the United States total land area (33) but is projected to double by 2030, predominantly in the intermountain West (49). This expected development expansion will increase not only ignition pressure, but also the vulnerability of new infrastructure. Human-driven expansion of the spatial and temporal distribution of ignitions makes national- and regional-scale policy interventions and increased public awareness critical for reducing national wildfire risk.