The States Losing the Most Land to Wildfires, Mapped

Wildfires are getting worse in the U.S. thanks to climate change, faulty forest management, and increased building and development in fire-prone areas, 

Although the number of fires per year has not risen since the 1980s, the total area of land burned definitely has, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, from 2 to 3 million acres annually to about 7 million acres for an average year of the last decade. A record 10 million acres burned in 2020. 

Wildfires aren’t evenly distributed across the country, though—and some states are far more prone to them than others.

1. Wildfire Threat Is Increasing Overall
2. More Wildfires Are Part of a Long-Term Trend

Wildfire Threat Is Increasing Overall

Unfortunately, it’s a global trend. In 2023 and 2024, more than 78 million acres of forests burned worldwide, which is twice that of the average two-year span from the past two decades, according to a recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Wildfire risk is not distributed evenly across the U.S., as demonstrated in maps from the non-partisan data-collecting website USAFacts.org.

In 2023, the top five states that lost the most acreage were concentrated in the West and Southwest: 

• California: 332,722 acres
• Alaska: 314,276 acres
• New Mexico: 212,378 acres
• Texas: 210,264 acres
• Oregon: 202,035 acres

The states with the least land lost to fires were comparatively small and cold. They were:

• Delaware: 0 acres
• New Hampshire: 58 acres
• Vermont: 62 acres
• Kentucky: 70 acres
• Connecticut: 297 acres

When considering the number of burned acres per 10,000 acres of land, the map looks a little different. The states with the highest concentrations of wildfires were:

• Nebraska: 36.5 acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres
• Oklahoma: 36.3 acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres
• Washington: 33.2 acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres
• New Jersey: 32.3 acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres
• Oregon: 32.1 acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres

More Wildfires Are Part of a Long-Term Trend

None of this should be surprising. California—which experienced some of the most destructive and deadly wildfires in its history earlier this year—is characterized by a mix of dry air, dry vegetation, strong winds, and high population density (humans cause about 85 percent of wildfires) that make the state a tinder box. Some of these factors also effect New Mexico, Texas, and Oregon. 

Alaska is different; cycles of drought and lightning storms make wildfires a part of its natural ecosystem, but this cycle is unnaturally accelerating. According to USDA data, 2.5 times more acreage burned between 2000 and 2020 than in the previous two decades, and three of the four years with the highest acreage burned have occurred since 2000. 

The situation is expected to get worse, as climate change continues to increase temperatures and lead to greater evaporation, leaving dry, fire-ready conditions. The annual season with the greatest risks is predicted to be longer in the future. Scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have predicted that, by the end of the century, extreme wildfire risk will increase by an average of 10 days across the continental U.S., and some regions, like the southern Great Plains, will have more than 40 additional days of extreme risk. 

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