Wildfires

A wildfire is an unplanned, unwanted fire that burns in a natural area such as a forest, grassland, or prairie. Wildfires are often caused by human activity or a natural phenomenon such as lightning, and they can happen at any time or anywhere. 

• Naturally Occurring Wildfires are most frequently caused by lightning. There are also volcanic, meteor, and coal-seam fires, depending on the circumstances. 
• Human Caused Wildfires can be accidental, intentional (arson), or from an act of negligence. 
  • Dept of the Interior – Indian Affairs 

Megafires: The U.S. Interagency Fire Center defines a megafire by its size: a wildfire that burns more than 40,500 hectares (100,000 acres) of land. Other wildfire experts expand the definition of a megafire beyond “acres burned” to mean wildfires that have an unusually large impact on people and the environment. (https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/megafire/)

• Fire and forest managers should recognize that mega-fires will be a part of future wildland fire regimes and should develop strategies to reduce their undesired impacts. https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/47021

Much of the country is experiencing more intense and frequent wildfires associated with increases in extremely dry conditions, such as drought, amplified heating, and during high winds. (NCA5 https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/)

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports wildfires caused $81.6 billion in damage in from 2017 to 2021, a nearly 10-fold increase from 2012 to 2016, when damages totaled $8.6 billion. 
• Over the past 40 years, the average number of acres of forested land consumed by wildfire each year in the United States has increased by 1,000% according to National Geographic.
• A report in March, 2022 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science revealed more fires occurred in the past 13 years than the previous 20 years. On the West and East coasts, fire frequency doubled. In the Great Plains, fire frequency quadrupled. 

Climate change will increase the danger from wildfires. For much of the U.S. West, projections show that an average annual 1.8°F temperature increase would increase the median burned area per year as much as 600% in some types of forests. In the Southeastern U.S., modeling suggests increased fire risk and a longer fire season, with at least a 30% increase from 2011 in the area burned by lightning-ignited wildfire by 2060.

CISA’s Role in Increasing Wildfire Resiliency

CISA’s Regional Protective Security Advisors provide boots-on-ground critical infrastructure and telecommunications coordination through ESF 2 during wildfire response efforts and mitigation planning.

CISA provides direct engagement for climate change and extreme weather enhanced wildfires to national emergency management trainers, support organizations, and local emergency response teams to highlight immediate risk and cascading impacts to communities and critical infrastructure sectors.

CISA’s exercise team aids partners in creating tabletop exercises that can combine threats such as in 2023 when CISA and HHS hosted an Extreme Event scenario dealing with extreme heat and drought amplified wildfires and coordinated cyberattacks to identify compounding risks.

Critical Infrastructure Impacts

Wildfires can disrupt critical infrastructure sectors such as transportation, communications, power and gas services, and water supply. They also lead to a deterioration of the air quality, and loss of property, crops, resources, animals and people. 

• Wildfires are costing the U.S. economy between $394-$893 billion annually in part due to reducing real estate value and increasing the costs of water infrastructure and supply (CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/us/wildfire-cost-us-economy-congressional-report-climate/index.html).
• The USDA states forest fires often reach or exceed temperatures of 2,000° Fahrenheit—equivalent to one-fifth the temperature of the surface of the sun. This intensity of heat can melt almost any building material and either damage or destroy key sites if surrounding temperatures get too hot, regardless of if the fire touches the facility. 
• Wildfires threaten emergency services as fire departments are called to action for firefighting, police and sheriffs are called for traffic and evacuation assistance, paramedics are required for impacted communities and shelters, hospitals can face both evacuation risk or could become overwhelmed due to the sudden heightened need. Military services can be utilized for firefighting, evacuations, and other fire event needs by the state. 
• Telecommunication towers can be at risk from direct damage from fire or the loss of supporting electrical facilities either shut down or destroyed by wildfire activity. 
• Smoke can impact crops regionally and across neighboring regions as well as a harmful composite of minerals/metals which can reduce the ability to absorb sunlight, can negatively impact soil compositions, or could directly damage the crop itself such as wine grapes. 
• Smoke/soot and debris can deposit along higher elevations, reducing the critical snowpack development in following months while the loss of vegetation can increase wind speeds through the area further drying soils and plants and exacerbating dried brush further and amplifying runoff from future storms for years causing washes to become unpredictable and higher downstream floodwater flow rates. 
• Fire can cause long term damage to vegetation and remove critical root systems, allowing for following rainfall events to move large amounts of sediment and harmful concentrations of minerals/metals into water systems resulting in reduced operations or total loss of water and wastewater facilities. 
• Fires burning undergrowth along valleys and washes can damage bridges by burning underneath them, resulting in prolonged damage assessments and unsafe structural integrity. 
• Fires can produce harmful soot/ash which can buildup in open facing water sources, reducing visibility causing delays across multiple transportation sectors, and can cause unhealthy air quality levels resulting in possible shelter-in-place orders which could impact critical infrastructure operations. 
• Smoke can impact powerlines by degrading transmission and threatening arching along the lines.  
• Smoke will degrade air filters inside buildings and homes resulting in unhealthy particulates entering worksites and increasing the risk of medical services being overwhelmed in neighboring communities due to longer-term impacts from smoke.