Human activity is transforming landscapes in the eastern United States, increasing the risk of destructive wildfires that threaten people and ecosystems.
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The past few years have seen massive wildfires ravage the western United States – burning nearly 60,000 acres in 2025 in California alone. However, up until recently, the eastern part of the country has been spared such devastation. Today, the eastern US is home to about 80% of the country’s population, and includes major metropolitan areas such as New York, Boston, Washington DC, and Miami. A major change in fire regime, or a wildfire disaster that affects infrastructure or settlements, would be devastating for human life and the economy.
The eastern US is generally more temperate and humid, whereas the west is drier. As such, large wildfires like those seen in California have historically not happened frequently. Fire was still a part of the landscape, albeit in a different form. According to Winslow Hansen, a Forest Ecologist and Director of the Western Fire and Forest Resilience Collaborative, the southeastern part of the nation has been the setting of many prescribed fires, affecting longleaf pine forests in particular. “In the Northeast, people started most of the fires until about 100 years ago,” Hansen told Earth.Org. Around this point, strong fire suppression practices began, preventing fires in most eastern forest landscapes. This changed not only the ecosystems of the region but also local communities’ relationship to fire.
Today, however, wildfires are sparking in the eastern US with more frequency. In particular, Hansen highlights that these fires are often started when a human ignition – such as a discarded cigarette – intersects with an intense period of dryness, when fuel is abundant, such as after leaves have fallen off trees in the autumn or before new leaves grow in the spring.
The impact of increasing fires may seem to be an issue confined to forests and rural areas, but it is already impacting major metropolitan areas such as New York. In November 2024, fires ignited in the greater New York metropolitan area, including New Jersey and New York State. The resulting smoke caused a sharp decrease in air quality in urban neighborhoods, with some of the worst air quality being recorded in Brooklyn. On November 8, a fire was even ignited within the city limits, when an area in the popular Prospect Park caught fire, damaging some of Brooklyn’s last remaining upland forest habitat, home to many rare native species.
What Is Driving These Changes?
There are multiple, interlocking factors that affect the frequency, intensity and damage inflicted by fires. Erica Smithwick, a Professor of Geography at Penn State University and leader of the Eastern Fire Network, spoke to Earth.Org, and shared that in order to understand wildfire regimes in the eastern US, one needs to understand the “complex human, vegetation, and climate factors that governed fires historically and into the future.”
“We understand from this prior work that there is tremendous variability in the relative influence of factors such as vegetation flammability, cultural burning, and historical climate drivers such as drought…however, looking into the future, there are many dynamics that may lead to increased wildfire risk in the East,” said Smithwick.
Smithwick highlights the wildland-urban-interface (WUI) as a particular challenge of wildfires in the eastern US: “We simply have a higher density of people living in forested areas than in the west,” she said. Many homes in that part of the country are close to, or even built within, forested areas, which are vulnerable to fires. Furthermore, the very presence of these buildings in forests makes them susceptible to fires, by providing a source of ignition through discarded cigarettes, barbecues, or other human-caused fires that could spread out of control. The density of settlement means that even small fires can have huge impacts, but also that hyperlocal infrastructure such as roads and buildings can affect the spread of fire by acting as firebreaks or, conversely, ways for fire to spread.
Complicating this issue is the fact that land in these areas is not managed under one jurisdiction or governing party; instead, it is divided into complex parcels with differing regulations. “The tight intermingling of these many fine-grained jurisdictional boundaries means that coordination of landscape-level fire management policy or coordination is very difficult, and current policies and capacities differ greatly across states,” explained Smithwick.
Even emergency communication challenges about wildfires are affected by issues of complex governance, as certain areas may experience more fires than others, but are counted within the same jurisdiction.
Climate change is also shifting the environmental variables that affect fire. Understanding the relationship between climate and fires may help predict when areas are at higher risk for burning, and allow communities to prepare.
What Can Be Done in the Face of These Challenges?
On the local level, Smithwick suggests improving emergency preparedness among residents of high-risk communities. “Ensuring that local communities have a coordinated plan for responding to emergency events, that communities are educated on building fire-safe homes, and that forests and towns are managed to limit fire spread while balancing other social and ecological objectives should be key priorities,” she said. While the pressure to build and the menace of climate change may be difficult issues to solve on a local level, dangers to life and property can be reduced.
Although a vision of a fire-ravaged landscape is frightening, it is critical to consider that fires are not always destructive. Fires can introduce beneficial disturbances into landscapes, providing opportunities for new ecosystems to emerge. Furthermore, prescribed burning, a practice employed by local and indigenous communities for millennia, can help prevent more destructive fires.
“Our most potent tool to avoid the fastest and most destructive fires is fire itself,” said Hansen. “We should invest heavily in a culture that promotes fire back on our landscapes when risk is low and ecological benefits will be highest. We can fight fire with fire!”
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.
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