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Auteurs principaux: Kumar, Mukesh, Abatzoglou, John T., Kolden, Crystal A., Sadegh, Mojtaba
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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Accès en ligne:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19514
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author Kumar, Mukesh
Abatzoglou, John T.
Kolden, Crystal A.
Sadegh, Mojtaba
author_facet Kumar, Mukesh
Abatzoglou, John T.
Kolden, Crystal A.
Sadegh, Mojtaba
contents Wildfire impacts on US communities have escalated in recent decades, highlighting the need to better understand factors that influence wildfire outcomes. We find that 567,000 homes were exposed to wildfires across the contiguous US during 2001-2020, two-thirds of which occurred and increased five-fold in the Western US. While residential structure survivability - the percent of structures within a wildfire perimeter that survive the fire - remained stable in the Eastern US in the past two decades, it declined by 10% in the West. Survivability was explained by structural age, surrounding fuels, and fire weather. Survivability was 87% for homes built pre-1990 compared to 92% for post-1990 homes in the West. Survivability was lowest in forests compared to grasslands and shrublands. Finally, survivability was markedly lower for fires coincident with extreme fire weather. Our results suggest that modern building codes, fuel management, and proactive planning can strengthen wildfire resilience.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19514
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Residential structure survivability to large wildfires in the United States
Kumar, Mukesh
Abatzoglou, John T.
Kolden, Crystal A.
Sadegh, Mojtaba
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Wildfire impacts on US communities have escalated in recent decades, highlighting the need to better understand factors that influence wildfire outcomes. We find that 567,000 homes were exposed to wildfires across the contiguous US during 2001-2020, two-thirds of which occurred and increased five-fold in the Western US. While residential structure survivability - the percent of structures within a wildfire perimeter that survive the fire - remained stable in the Eastern US in the past two decades, it declined by 10% in the West. Survivability was explained by structural age, surrounding fuels, and fire weather. Survivability was 87% for homes built pre-1990 compared to 92% for post-1990 homes in the West. Survivability was lowest in forests compared to grasslands and shrublands. Finally, survivability was markedly lower for fires coincident with extreme fire weather. Our results suggest that modern building codes, fuel management, and proactive planning can strengthen wildfire resilience.
title Residential structure survivability to large wildfires in the United States
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19514