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The Costs of U.S. Wildfires (2014-2017)

This data was collected as part of an investigation by Big Local News, a project of the Stanford Journalism and Democracy Initiative, into the costs of wildfires across the U.S..Through the analysis the authors found that California’s costs for suppressing wildfires has increased precipitously over the past few years. But how do these costs compare to those for other states in the U.S.? And why, exactly, are California’s wildfires so costly and devastating? Big Local News analyzed data from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, and found that California’s most expensive fires dwarf those in other states. Through interviews with firefighters, policymakers, citizens and scientists, they reported on the impact of California’s unique interface between wildland and urban areas on its recent wildfires. This data can be used to evaluate wildfires across the U.S. from 2014-2017.This analysis is based on four data sources including: 1. Daily situation (SIT-209) reports from The National Fire & Aviation Management Web Applications site (https://fam.nwcg.gov/fam-web/) 2. Fire perimeter data from The Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination (GeoMAC) Wildland Fire database. (https://www.geomac.gov/) 3. Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) change data from the SILVIS Lab at the University of Washington-Madison (http://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/) 4. WUI statistics over the last twenty years, as measured in the report The 2010 wildland-urban interface of the conterminous United States (https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/48642).A complete description of the data included can be found in the analysis file: notebook.ipynb. To request information, please contact biglocalnews@lists.stanford.edu.