Annual Murphy Lecture: Park Williams
November 1, 2018
By evaluating records of wildfire occurrence and size in the western US from 1984 through 2020 (during which time annual burned area increased 300%) patterns point to a tenfold increase in forest fire area, that fire size increase rather than frequency affects burn area, and that fires ignited by lighting represent the highest growth in forest fire size. Continued work is needed to better understand the interacting effects of fuels and climate on western US wildfire in order to inform our expectations of future wildfire trends and decisions about how to better manage fire, fuels, and other related natural resources such as water.
Park Williams
Associate Professor
Department of
