Two and a half decades of United States wildfire burn zone disaster data, 2000-2025

This study harmonized six wildfire datasets to create the first U.S.-wide spatial dataset of wildfire burn zone disasters. The authors identified 6,212 U.S. wildfire burn zone disasters between 2000–2025. The annual number of these disasters ranged between 61 in 2001 and 570 in 2011 (median = 217), with an increasing trend over the study period.

Growing wildfire frequency and urban development expanding into fire-prone areas have heightened wildfire risk for wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. When burn zones come near or cross into communities, the heat, flames, and smoke can harm human health—directly or via psychosocial stressors—to the point of becoming a disaster. This data may inform demographic, economic, and population health research, as well as policymaking and resource allocation.