Future Wildfire Risk to Population and Property in the Contiguous US: A Scenario-Based Assessment

Abstract Despite growing concern about wildfire impacts on human societies under climate and socioeconomic change, existing studies often examine individual drivers or focus on regional patterns, limiting our understanding of how wildfire risk may vary across communities at the national scale. Here, we develop a county-level framework that integrates wildfire hazard, exposure, and community vulnerability to assess future wildfire risk across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Using projections of annual burned area, population and property distributions, wildland-urban interface (WUI) extent, and a social vulnerability index under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), we assess changes in population and property wildfire risk through the end of the 21st century. Our results show that the western forested and Rocky Mountain regions currently face the highest wildfire risk resulting from high burn probabilities, elevated social vulnerability, and extensive WUI areas, whereas most counties in the northern Great Plains experience relatively low risk because of limited fire activity, lower social vulnerability, and sparse WUI. Future projections indicate substantial spatial heterogeneity in risk changes: many areas with currently high risk remain among the highest-risk regions, while some historically low-risk counties transition toward higher risk, driven primarily by increases in population exposure and social vulnerability. By the end of the century, population and property risks across the CONUS are projected to rise by 54%–411% and 19%–160%, respectively, under three SSP scenarios. These findings highlight the need to extend wildfire management strategies beyond currently high-risk areas to account for emerging shifts in wildfire risk across the CONUS.