‘Fast fires’ are getting faster, more dangerous in the Western U.S.
Fast-growing fires caused 88% of fire-related damages despite being relatively rare in the U.S. between 2001–20, according to a CU Boulder and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) study.
The research team, led by Associate Professor of Geography and CIRES Fellow Jennifer Balch, used satellite data to analyze the growth rates of over 60,000 fires. They discovered a staggering 250% increase in the average maximum growth rate of the fastest fires over the last two decades in the Western U.S.
The work, published in Science, highlights a critical gap in U.S. hazard preparedness. Fast fires can ignite homes before emergency responders are able to intervene, but national-level risk assessments don’t account for fire speed.
A fire whirl forms during the fast-moving East Troublesome Fire in 2020
Principal investigators
Cibele Amaral; Jennifer Balch; Virginia Iglesias; Tyler McIntosh; Chelsea Nagy; Ty Tuff
Funding
CU Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), Earth Lab, Grand Challenge; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); Joint Fire Science Program; U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF); the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Collaboration + support
CU Boulder’s Environmental Data Science Innovation and Impact Lab (ESIIL), Department of Geography; NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF); University of California,
Los Angeles; University of California, Merced
Learn more about this topic:
Fire speed, not size, drives threat to people, infrastructure