Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States

Malamud, Bruce D.; Millington, James D. A.; Perry, George L. W.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0500880102

Cited by 259Fire effects on ecosystemsDisaster Management and ResilienceRangeland and Wildlife Management

Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States

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Malamud, Bruce D., Millington, James D. A., Perry, George L. W.·2005·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI 10.1073/pnas.0500880102PMC PMC555719

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Abstract

Wildfires statistics for the conterminous United States (U.S.) are examined in a spatially and temporally explicit manner. We use a high-resolution data set consisting of 88,916 U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service wildfires over the time period 1970-2000 and consider wildfire occurrence as a function of ecoregion (land units classified by climate, vegetation, and topography), ignition source (anthropogenic vs. lightning), and decade. For the conterminous U.S., we ( i ) find that wildfires exhibit robust frequency-area power-law behavior in 18 different ecoregions; ( ii ) use normalized power-law exponents to compare the scaling of wildfire-burned areas between ecoregions, finding a systematic change from east to west; ( iii ) find that wildfires in the eastern third of the U.S. have higher power-law exponents for anthropogenic vs. lightning ignition sources; and ( iv ) calculate recurrence intervals for wildfires of a given burned area or larger for each ecoregion, allowing for the classification of wildfire regimes for probabilistic hazard estimation in the same vein as is now used for earthquakes.

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Several studies indicate that people are important in redistributing ignition sources, especially where lightning is rare or not concurrent with dry conditions.
“However, several studies suggest that humans play an important role in redistributing ignitions (20–22), particularly where lightning rarely occurs or where lightning is not concurrent with dry conditions (23).”
From Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States (2017) · cites this paper as [21]

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Authors: Malamud, B. D., Millington, J. D. A., & Perry, G. L. W.
Affiliations: University of Auckland (NZ)
Corresponding author: Malamud, Bruce D.
ORCID: Malamud, Bruce D.
Millington, James D. A.
Perry, George L. W.
Venue: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Published: 2005-03-21
Volume: 102
Issue: 13
Pages: 4694-4699
ISSN: 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
1091-6490
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0500880102
PMC: PMC555719
OpenAlex: W2125408438
Cited by: 259
References: 53
Citations by year: 2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 14
FWCI: 13.34
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: bronze
doi.org
Locations: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
Topics: Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
Keywords: wildfire regimes, flow index, ecoregions, anthropogenic ignition, lightning ignition, return periods, burned area, contiguous United States

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Characterizing wildfire regimes in the United States

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