Western Wildfires Destroying More Homes Per Square Mile Burned, Finds New Analysis

Feb 03, 2023

More than three times as many houses and other structures burned in Western wildfires in 2010–2020 than in the previous decade, and that wasn't only because more acreage burned, a new analysis has found. Human ignitions started 76% of the wildfires that destroyed structures, and those fires tended to be in flammable areas where homes, commercial structures, and outbuildings are increasingly common.

"Humans are driving the negative impacts from wildfire," concluded lead author Philip Higuera, a fire ecologist and professor at the University of Montana, who wrote the assessment during a sabbatical at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and CU Boulder. "Human fingerprints are all over this—we influence the when, the where, and the why."

Most measures of wildfire's impact—expansion of wildfire season into new months, and the number of structures in flammable vegetation, for example—are going in the wrong direction, Higuera said. But the new finding, published February 1 in PNAS Nexus, also means that human action can lessen the risks of wildfire damage.

"We have levers," he said. "As climate change makes vegetation more flammable we advise carefully considering if and how we develop in flammable vegetation, for example."

During Higuera's visiting fellowship at CIRES, he worked with several researchers to dig into the details of 15,001 Western wildfires between 1999 and 2020.

Burned area increased 30% across the West, the team found, but structure loss increased much more, by nearly 250%. Many factors contributed, including climate change, our tendency to build more homes in flammable ecosystems, and a history of suppressing wildfire. Co-author and CIRES/CU Boulder Ph.D. student Maxwell Cook said that the forcible removal of Indigenous people from landscapes played a role, by all-but-eliminating intentional burning, which can lessen the risk of more destructive fires.

"Prescribed fire is an incredibly important tool, and we have a lot to learn about how people have been using fire for centuries," Cook said.

In the new assessment, the team found some just plain horrible years for wildfire: 62% of all structures lost in those two decades were lost in just three years: 2017, 2018, and 2020, Cook said. And some states had it much worse than others: California, for example, accounted for more than 77% of all 85,014 structures destroyed during 1999-2020.

Across the West, 1.3 structures were destroyed for every 1,000 hectares of land scorched by wildfire between 1999 and 2009. Between 2010 and 2020, that ratio increased to 3.4

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Video: The Investment Opportunities of Industrial Hemp

The fledgling U.S. hemp industry is decades behind countries like Canada, France and China, but according to impact investor and this week’s podcast guest, Pierre Berard, it could flourish into a $2.2 billion industry by 2030 and create thousands of jobs.

To reach its potential, what the hemp industry needs most right now, Berard said, is capital investment.

Last month, Berard published a report titled “Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity — A Pioneering Venture for Investors and Corporations Driven by Environmental, Social and Financial Concerns” in which he lays out the case for investment.

It’s as if Berard, with this report, is waving a giant flag, trying to attract the eyes of investors, saying, “Look over here. Look at all this opportunity.”

Berard likens the burgeoning American hemp industry to a developing country.

“There is no capital. People don’t want to finance. This is too risky. And I was like, OK, this sounds like something for me,” he said.

As an impact investor who manages funds specializing in agro-processing companies, Berard now has his sights set on the U.S. hemp industry, which he believes has great economic value as well as social and environmental benefits.

He spent many years developing investment in the agriculture infrastructure of developing countries in Latin America and Africa, and said the hemp industry feels similar.

“It is very nascent and it is a very fragmented sector. You have pioneers and trailblazers inventing or reinventing the field after 80 years of prohibition,” he said. “So I feel very familiar with this context.”

On this week’s hemp podcast, Berard talks about the report and the opportunities available to investors in the feed, fiber and food sectors of the hemp industry.

Building an industry around an agricultural commodity takes time, he said. According to the report, “The soybean industry took about 50 years to become firmly established, from the first USDA imports in 1898 to the U.S. being the top worldwide producer in the 1950s.”

Berard has a plan to accelerate the growth of the hemp industry and sees a four-pillar approach to attract investment.

First, he said, the foundation of the industry is the relationship between farmers and processors at the local level.

Second, he said the industry needs what he calls a “federating body” that will represent it, foster markets and innovations, and reduce risk for its members and investors.

The third pillar is “collaboration with corporations that aim to secure or diversify their supply chains with sustainable products and enhance their ESG credentials. This will be key to funding the industry and creating markets,” he said.

The fourth pillar is investment. Lots of it. Over $1.6 billion over seven years. This money will come from government, corporations, individual investors, and philanthropic donors.

The 75-page report goes into detail about the hemp industry, its environmental and social impact, and the opportunities available to investors.

Read the report here: Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity

Also on this episode, we check in with hemp and bison farmer Herb Grove from Brush Mountain Bison in Centre County, PA, where he grew 50 acres of hemp grain. We’ll hear about harvest and dry down and crushing the seed for oil and cake.