Wildfire, Suppression, and Federal Spending, 2020–2100
| Authors: | Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Shannon Kay, Jennifer Costanza, Linda A. Joyce, Karin Riley, Karen C. Short, Erin J. Belval, Bruno Kanieski da Silva, Prakash Nepal, Jeffrey T. Morisette |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | Southern Research Station |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF007985 |
| Source: | Earth's Future |
Abstract
Wildfire extent is growing in the United States (US), a fact attributable to increasingly favorable weather and climatic conditions and the net result of human interventions. US federal land management agencies act upon the wildfire threat by managing hazardous fuels, discouraging human‐caused ignitions, and suppressing active fires. Costs of these actions are rising, so policy makers and wildland managers seek information that can help them understand the trade‐offs of resource allocations. This study generates new information about potential future wildfire and suppression demands by uncovering statistical relationships between observed wildfire and its hypothesized drivers, including socioeconomic, fuels, and climate variables, and by capturing the endogenous relationship between suppression spending and wildfire activity on lands managed by the USDA Forest Service (USFS) and the four key bureaus of the US Department of the Interior (DOI). Climate uncertainty is addressed by modeling wildfire and suppression spending under ten scenarios of potential future climates. Projected wildfire and spending trends to 2100 vary widely across scenarios but are universally upward. When summarized across all ten climate scenarios, real dollar suppression spending rises by a median rate of about 0.87% per year for the USFS and 0.65% per year for the DOI. The highest rates of wildfire and spending growth are projected for the northwestern US.