Description
Changes in wildfire regimes may disrupt ecosystem processes as wildfires burn larger areas or burn more frequently than the recent natural range of variability. The climatic drivers of wildfire behavior may change in strength but these effects are not likely to be uniform across space and between different vegetation types. Increased understanding of how weather and climate influence patterns of burn area and frequency across vegetation types may assist in better predicting and managing future wildfire regimes. We examined a dataset of all 1469 wildfires ≥40 ha from 1984 – 2021 in Utah, USA and used antecedent daily weather data to analyze how temperature and aridity influenced fire area and frequency across forested and non-forested vegetation types. The number of days in a year where air temperature was ≥ 26.6 °C (80 °F) was the best predictor for area burned for forest (R2 = 0.31) and non-forest ecosystems (R2 = 0.31) in Utah. However, model skill was variable across vegetation types and performed best for high-elevation forest ecosystems (R2 = 0.27 to 0.32) relative to low-elevation, non-forest ecosystems (R2 = 0.11 to 0.31). By 2050, warming trends local to Utah may result in a 60% increase in area burned for forests and a 232% increase for non-forests. These results highlight a simple metric – temperature – that explains large portions of variability in burned area and correlates with fire season length. A simple temperature metric is a good match for the vegetation and fire season climate of Utah, which is generally dry. Our results suggests that a warmer future may bring widespread and vegetation-specific changes in wildfire regimes with large increases in area burned across most vegetation types.
Author ORCID Identifier
Joseph D. Birch: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8644-7345;
Yoshimitsu Chikamoto: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1001-5188;
James A. Lutz: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2560-0710
Document Type
Dataset
DCMI Type
Dataset
File Format
.xlsx
Publication Date
12-9-2025
Funder
Utah Public Legislature
Utah Agricultural Experiment Station
Publisher
Utah State University
Methodology
Fire data was summarized for all fires (>= 40 ha) in Utah that burned between 1984 - 2021 and categorized according to the underlying vegetation system as detailed in Birch and Lutz (2023). Daily climate data was summarized across Utah for the period of record, and thresholds were defined based on precipitation (days with < 0.1 mm precipitation) and based on maximum air temperature (70 – 100 °F in 5 °F increments). Climate data was segregated based on elevation in Utah, with low-lying 'non-forest' and high elevation 'forest' ecosystems based on the mean elevation range of vegetation in Utah.
Referenced by
Birch, J.D., Chikamoto, Y., Lutz, J.A. 2025. Large projected increases in area burned and wildfire frequency by 2050 in Utah, USA. Climatic Change. 10.1007/s10584-025-04086-0
Start Date
1984
End Date
2021
Location
Utah, USA
Language
eng
Code Lists
See README
Disciplines
Environmental Sciences
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Birch, Joseph D.; Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu; and Lutz, James A., "Data for "Large projected increases in area burned and wildfire frequency by 2050 in Utah, USA"" (2025). Browse all Datasets. Paper 258.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/all_datasets/258
Checksum
170701942b3c893a98275d4dcbfb3f48