From Spokane, Washington, to Pueblo County, Colorado, fast-moving fires have again wreaked havoc in neighborhoods this summer. Now, a network of scientists, fire professionals, and other experts have joined forces to seek research-based solutions to the problem.
University of Colorado Boulder fire scientist Jennifer Balch argues that widespread thinking about the wildfire crisis is wrong in some basic ways. In a 2024 paper, she and co-authors argued that it isn’t the increasing size of fires that’s threatening homes and lives: it’s their speed.
In a recent two-decade period, wildfires that grew more than 4,000 acres in a day were less than 3% of the roughly 60,000 fires they analyzed. But that small portion accounted for nearly 90% of structures damaged or destroyed…