The number of wildfires per year is going down, but the increasing size and intensity of the fires is creating more property damage than ever before – in fact, the average fire size has tripled over the past 30 years, a new analysis shows.
Wildfire activity is cyclical and doesn’t follow a uniform pattern form season to season. In 2023, when an El Niño weather pattern brought increased moisture to the West and South, the U.S. experienced a 25-year low in total area burned. Reports showed 2.7 million acres (4,209 square miles) burned that year