Annual Wildfire Burned Area in the United States

  • Released Friday, January 3, 2025
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A graph of annual wildfire burned area in the United States between the years 1983 and 2023.

A graph of annual wildfire burned area in the United States between the years 1983 and 2023.

Annual wildfire burned area in the United States between the years 1983 and 2023. The data comes from the National Interagency Fire Center. The extent of area burned by wildfires each year appears to have increased since the 1980s. According to National Interagency Fire Center data, of the 10 years with the largest acreage burned, all have occurred since 2004, including the peak years in 2015 and 2020.

An animated graph of annual wildfire burned area in the United States between the years 1983 and 2023.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, January 3, 2025.
This page was last updated on Friday, January 3, 2025 at 11:27 AM EST.

Datasets used

  • Wildfire Burned Area (United States Total Wildland Fires and Acres)

    ID: 1232
    Type: Observed Data

    The National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, the federal wildland fire agencies did not track official wildfire data using current reporting processes. As a result, there is no official data prior to 1983 posted on this site.

    Credit: The National Interagency Coordination Center at the National Interagency Fire Center

    This dataset can be found at: https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics/wildfires

    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.