L4: Wildfire History

Metrics

Historic Wildfires

L.4.1 Historic burn areas

A map of Utah showing burn areas across the state. Burns from 2000-2005 are shown in yellow, burns from 2006-2010 are shown in orange, burns from 2010-2015 are shown in red, and burns from 2016-2018 are shown in brown. Notable large burns, from largest to smallest, include a burn in the 2006-2010 date range in southwestern Utah, a group of burns in the 2016-2018 date range in central Utah, and a burn in the 2000-2005 date range in the very southwest corner of Utah.

This map highlights data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity interagency project. These datasets capture footprints of historic burn areas and keep point data of present and historic fires. Highlighted here are historic burn areas colorized by year.

Wildfire Response History

This dataset from the Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group (GEOMAC) contains historic wildfire perimeter and area information. Including comprehensive geospatial information on wildfire incidents across Utah, this dataset contains key attributes such as the location, size, and extent of each fire. Using a spatial join, wildfires from this dataset are assigned to the county containing a majority of the burn area. Fire size and responding agencies are included below; data is summed by county.

L.4.2 Statewide wildfire history

Year	Acres Burned	Bureau of Land Management	United States Forest Service	Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands	Other State Agency
2000	195,036	32	0	0	59
2001	88,489	0	0	0	65
2002	240,786	0	0	0	59
2003	102,505	51	12	0	1
2004	92,393	57	5	0	1
2005	226,754	91	11	0	14
2006	325,413	160	8	0	19
2007	593,052	91	5	0	19
2008	17,700	42	4	0	5
2009	102,664	37	12	0
2010	58,853	21	11	0	3
2011	48,866	65	7	0	2
2012	414,910	90	10	0	20
2013	78,518	14	11	0	4
2014	15,618	8	8	0	1
2015	5,542	9	5	0	6
2016	90,216	14	29	9	1
2017	184,091	26	9	13	1
2018	343,588	36	17	18	8

References

MTBS. (2024). Direct Download. [Data set] MTBS.gov. https://www.mtbs.gov/direct-download