Wildfire statistics measure more than the number of fires. In the United States, annual totals range from relatively low-burn years to years with millions of acres burned, while large fires, structure losses, suppression spending, smoke exposure, and emergency-department outcomes describe different parts of the same hazard.
Key Wildfire Statistics
The following highlights span national fire activity, incidents, public spending, air quality, and health outcomes:
- In 2024, 64,897 U.S. wildfires burned 8,924,884 acres.
- In 2020, 58,950 U.S. wildfires burned 10,122,336 acres.
- In 2006, 96,385 U.S. wildfires burned 9,873,745 acres.
- From 1984 through 2018, annual burned area averaged 30,000 km² in the conterminous United States according to a Landsat-derived estimate.
- The Landsat series estimated annual burned area from 14,000 km² in 1991 to 46,500 km² in 2012.
- In 2024, 1,188 large wildfires and complexes were recorded in the United States.
- In 2024, wildfires destroyed 4,552 structures, including 2,406 residences.
- In 2024, about one-fifth of U.S. wildfires occurred on federally protected lands.
- The 2022 Moose Fire burned 130,205 acres and cost $41,821,950 to suppress in Idaho.
- The 2022 Mosquito Fire led to more than 11,000 evacuations in California.
- Forest Service suppression activity costs totaled $2.7 billion in FY2023.
- FEMA provided more than $3.8 billion in wildfire-related assistance from FY2019 through FY2023.
- During April–August 2023, 19 wildfire-smoke days coincided with asthma-associated ED visits 17% above expected in the CDC study.
- CDC’s operational smoke-day threshold was PM2.5 of at least 35.5 µg/m³, corresponding to AQI 101.
- In Los Angeles County, wildfire-associated ED encounters rose from 0.06% at baseline to 0.52% during the first six wildfire days in the January 2025 surveillance period.
- Los Angeles County’s wildfire-associated ED share peaked at 1.01% on January 8, 2025.
Contents
- Key Wildfire Statistics
- Annual U.S. Wildfire Counts and Burned Acres
- Wildfire Data Trends and Satellite Estimates
- Large Wildfires, Geographic Patterns, and Structure Loss
- Wildfire Suppression Costs and Federal Assistance
- Wildfire Smoke Exposure and Air-Quality Data
- Wildfire Health Outcomes and Emergency-Department Statistics
Annual U.S. Wildfire Counts and Burned Acres
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports wildland-fire counts and acres by year. These are reported totals, not a complete census of every ignition, and the current official process begins in 1983.
| Year | Reported wildfires | Acres burned |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 64,897 | 8,924,884 |
| 2023 | 56,580 | 2,693,910 |
| 2022 | 68,988 | 7,577,183 |
| 2021 | 58,985 | 7,125,643 |
| 2020 | 58,950 | 10,122,336 |
| 2019 | 50,477 | 4,664,364 |
| 2018 | 58,083 | 8,767,492 |
| 2017 | 71,499 | 10,026,086 |
| 2016 | 67,743 | 5,509,995 |
| 2015 | 68,151 | 10,125,149 |
Source: Wildfires and Acres, NIFC annual reporting.
The longer NIFC series shows why fire count and burned acreage should be read together. A year can have many reported fires but comparatively little burned area, while another year can have fewer fires and much greater acreage.
- In 2014, 63,312 wildfires burned 3,595,613 acres, while 2013 had 47,579 fires and 4,319,546 acres burned.
- In 2012, 67,774 wildfires burned 9,326,238 acres, and 2011 had 74,126 fires and 8,711,367 acres burned.
- In 2010, 71,971 wildfires burned 3,422,724 acres, compared with 78,792 fires and 5,921,786 acres in 2009.
- In 2008, 78,979 wildfires burned 5,292,468 acres, while 2007 had 85,705 fires and 9,328,045 acres burned.
- In 2006, 96,385 wildfires burned 9,873,745 acres, and 2005 had 66,753 fires and 8,689,389 acres burned.
The historical record also includes 65,461 fires and 8,097,880 acres in 2004, 63,629 fires and 3,960,842 acres in 2003, and 73,457 fires and 7,184,712 acres in 2002. NIFC notes that the 2004 acreage and fire count exclude North Carolina state lands.
For earlier comparison, NIFC reported 84,079 fires and 3,570,911 acres in 2001, 92,250 fires and 7,393,493 acres in 2000, 87,394 fires and 2,069,929 acres in 1992, 75,754 fires and 2,953,578 acres in 1991, and 66,481 fires and 4,621,621 acres in 1990. These figures use NIFC’s reporting framework and should not be treated as an ignition census.
Wildfire Data Trends and Satellite Estimates
Satellite-derived estimates provide another way to describe burned area across the conterminous United States. The USGS Landsat study estimated an average annual burned area of 30,000 km² from 1984 through 2018.
| Landsat measure | Result | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Average annual burned area | 30,000 km² | Conterminous U.S., 1984–2018 |
| Lowest annual estimate | 14,000 km² | 1991 |
| Highest annual estimate | 46,500 km² | 2012 |
| Estimated trend | 356 km² per year | 1984–2018 series |
Source: The Landsat Burned Area algorithm and products for the conterminous United States.
The estimated Landsat series increased at 356 km² per year over the study period. That is a modelled temporal trend in a satellite-derived product, not a direct count of every fire or a forecast of future acreage.
Product comparisons also show why wildfire statistics depend on definitions and detection methods. For 1984–2015, the Landsat product identified 29% more burned area than BAECV; for 1984–2018, it identified 183% more than MTBS/GeoMAC.
Those differences are not corrections to a single true-area total. The USGS results have product-specific validation error, and the compared datasets use different detection thresholds and methods, including issues related to prescribed-fire interpretation.
Large Wildfires, Geographic Patterns, and Structure Loss
NIFC defines a large fire as at least 100 acres in timber or 300 acres in grass. Under that definition, 1,188 large wildfires and complexes were recorded in the United States in 2024, representing less than 2% of all reported U.S. wildfires.
The 2024 national summary also recorded 4,552 destroyed structures: 2,406 residences, 2,066 minor structures, and 80 commercial or mixed-residential structures. NIFC cautions that actual structure loss could be higher because county reporting varies.
Geographic distribution adds context to those totals. The Southwest Area accounted for 1,455 destroyed structures in 2024, while the Southern Area accounted for just over one-third of U.S. wildfire counts.
About one-fifth of U.S. wildfires occurred on federally protected lands in 2024. Most ignitions were under state, local, or private protection, so national wildfire activity is distributed across multiple land-management systems.
Source: National Interagency Coordination Center Wildland Fire Summary and Statistics Annual Report 2024.
Incident-level statistics show how different large-fire outcomes can be. The 2022 Moose Fire in Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest consumed 130,205 acres and had a suppression cost of $41,821,950, while California’s 2022 Mosquito Fire prompted evacuation of more than 11,000 people, destroyed at least 78 structures, and damaged 13.
Source: Wildland Fire Management. These are incident-specific figures and do not represent total economic loss.
Wildfire Suppression Costs and Federal Assistance
Suppression and recovery figures use different accounting periods and scopes, so they should not be combined into a single national-loss estimate. The Forest Service reported $2.7 billion in suppression activity costs in FY2023, including prior-year carryover and recoveries.
| Federal wildfire measure | Amount or count | Period and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Forest Service suppression activity costs | $2.7 billion | FY2023 |
| Wildland Fire Management supplemental appropriations | $1.386 billion | FY2023 |
| Reserve Fund transfer | $1.1 billion | FY2023 |
| Large incidents reviewed | 6 | FY2023; each over 20,000 acres and $50 million |
Source: Wildland Fire Management Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report and Large Fire Review.
The Forest Service received $1.386 billion in FY2023 supplemental appropriations for its Wildland Fire Management account, including $1.011 billion normally appropriated as base suppression funds. The FY2023 Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund transferred an additional $1.1 billion to that account.
The Forest Service reviewed six FY2023 incidents larger than 20,000 acres and costing more than $50 million each. This was a selected large-fire review, not an accounting of every wildfire.
Federal contracting and assistance measures cover other parts of the response. FEMA, the Forest Service, and BLM obligated at least $2 billion for wildfire response and recovery contracts from FY2018 through FY2021, while GAO’s process analysis reviewed a non-generalizable sample of 14 contracts and 18 orders.
FEMA provided more than $3.8 billion in wildfire-related assistance from FY2019 through FY2023 across five assistance programs and wildfire declarations in the study scope. About $3.2 billion of that amount was Public Assistance grants for emergency and permanent recovery work.
Sources: Disaster Contracting: Action Needed to Improve Agencies’ Use of Contracts for Wildfire Response and Recovery and Wildfires: Additional Actions Needed to Address FEMA Assistance Challenges.
Wildfire Smoke Exposure and Air-Quality Data
CDC’s April–August 2023 analysis examined wildfire-smoke episodes across U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regions. It used 4,317 emergency departments, representing 85% of National Syndromic Surveillance Program facilities.
CDC defined a wildfire-smoke day as a regional monitor day with PM2.5 of at least 35.5 µg/m³, corresponding to AQI 101. This was the study’s operational threshold, not a universal definition of wildfire smoke.
- The study identified 19 wildfire-smoke days from April 30 through August 4, 2023, when asthma-associated ED visits were 17% above expected.
- HHS Region 3 recorded five smoke-event days and a maximum 24-hour PM2.5 concentration of 259 µg/m³.
- HHS Regions 2 and 5 each recorded four smoke-event days, with maximum PM2.5 concentrations of 204 and 216 µg/m³, respectively.
- Region 2 recorded 364 excess asthma-associated ED visits across two days, including 123 among ages 5–17 and 251 among ages 18–64.
- Region 3 recorded 179 excess asthma-associated ED visits on one higher-than-expected day and 128 excess visits among ages 18–64 across two days.
- Region 5 recorded 172 excess asthma-associated ED visits on one day, including 14 among ages 5–17 and 155 among ages 18–64 across two days.
The CDC figures are surveillance associations and excess-visit estimates. “Excess” means observed visits minus modelled expected visits, and incomplete ED coverage means the results do not represent every U.S. emergency department.
Wildfire Health Outcomes and Emergency-Department Statistics
Los Angeles County surveillance during the December 17, 2024–January 12, 2025 wildfire period measured wildfire-associated ED encounters against a baseline. The surveillance captured 94% of county ED encounters and classified encounters using fire or smoke-inhalation terms.
| Los Angeles County measure | Baseline | Wildfire period or peak |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire-associated ED encounters | 0.06% | 0.52% in the first six wildfire days |
| Wildfire-associated ED encounters | 0.06% | 1.01% peak on January 8, 2025 |
| Average daily all-cause ED encounters | Baseline | 9% lower in the first wildfire phase |
| Average AQI | 75 | 110 in the first wildfire phase; later 58 |
Source: Notes from the Field: Emergency Department Use During the Los Angeles County Wildfires, January 2025.
Average daily all-cause ED encounters fell 9% in the first wildfire phase compared with the December 17, 2024–January 6, 2025 baseline, then returned to 95% of baseline. Average AQI rose from 75 at baseline to 110 during the first phase and later fell to 58; AQI came from one downtown Los Angeles EPA monitor.
Other encounter categories changed more modestly in the same surveillance study. Burn-related ED shares were 0.97% at baseline, 1.30% in phase 1, and 1.04% in phase 2, while eye-related shares were 1.09%, 1.46%, and 1.17%, respectively.
A separate peer-reviewed case-crossover study covered the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfire, which burned more than 150,000 acres in the southern Appalachian Mountains. That event description is not a national total; it identifies the scale of the study’s specific wildfire setting.
CDC wildfire-health results describe short-period surveillance patterns and estimated excess visits, not causal trial results. Local coding, monitor placement, reporting coverage, and the definition of a wildfire-associated encounter all affect how these outcomes should be interpreted.