Year: 2025
Type: data-paper
Abstract: Growing wildfire frequency and urban development expanding into fire-prone areas have heightened wildfire risk for wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. When burn zones come near or cross into communities, the heat, flames, and smoke can harm human health—directly or via psychosocial stressors—to the point of becoming a disaster. We harmonized six wildfire datasets to create the first U.S.-wide spatial dataset of wildfire burn zone disasters. Our criteria for a wildfire burn zone disaster were wildfires that burned near a community (≥96 people per km 2 or met WUI criterion) and resulted in ≥1 civilian fatality, ≥1 destroyed structure, or received federal disaster declaration. We identified 6,212 U.S. wildfire burn zone disasters between 2000–2025. The annual number of these disasters ranged between 61 in 2001 and 570 in 2011 (median = 217), with an increasing trend over the study period. California had the highest number of wildfire burn zone disasters (n = 878, 14.1%). These data may inform demographic, economic, and population health research, as well as policymaking and resource allocation.
Source: Scientific Data
Institutions: University of Washington, Columbia University, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Boston University, Harvard University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Inserm, École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique, University of California San Diego, Institut de Recherche en Santé, Environnement et Travail, Université de Rennes, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,490
Awards: G1001182770, G1619861743, G2412694988, Short and long-term consequences of wildfires for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, G3211073151, Advanced training in environmental health and data science: molecules to populations, G4512554681, G457819564, G4769158466, Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health, G772747473, G7982102820, Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan
OpenAlex ID: W4417423947