Study Projects U.S. Wildfire Risk to Buildings Could Triple by 2060

A study published in Nature Communications projects that some 300,000 U.S. buildings could be destroyed or damaged by wildfire by 2060 unless action is taken to curb global warming and adapt to fire. Lead author Virginia Iglesias, director of Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Gizmodo that the projected increase in wildfire losses is not inevitable and that the estimates describe what could happen if current patterns of mitigation, development, and structural vulnerability persist without additional adaptation.

The researchers reconstructed wildfire risk from 1945 to 2023 using historical data on burned area, development patterns, and fire impacts, then fed that into a model with weather, climate, and housing-density data. Under business-as-usual conditions with no adaptation, they found between 133,200 and 449,100 buildings could burn by mid-century, with an average of 300,000. For 2051 to 2060, they project wildfire risk to U.S. structures to be up to 3.2 times greater than it was from 2011 to 2020.

The analysis found regional and socioeconomic disparities. The West, particularly California, will remain the epicenter of fire risk, while emerging hotspots across central and eastern states could threaten communities with less wildfire experience and preparation. In the West, 30% of census tracts projected to face the highest fire risk overlap with socioeconomic hardship, meaning the most vulnerable communities could suffer the greatest structural losses.

The study notes that annual firefighting expenditures have exceeded $3 billion in recent years, yet the U.S. has seen some of its most destructive and lethal fires on record, with economic losses more than 130 times higher than suppression budgets. The authors believe the sharp rise in structural losses stems from a confluence of sprawling development into fire-prone terrain, heightened structural and social vulnerability, and widespread landscape modification, all compounded by a lengthening fire season.

Iglesias said development largely determines where risk is concentrated, while changes in fire activity drive how risk increases over time. She said household measures such as fire-resilient building materials, protecting homes from embers, and maintaining defensible space can largely improve the odds of a home's survival, but no single measure removes risk completely, and wildfire resilience requires a collective effort involving neighbors and local governments.