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<p>Wildfires intersecting developed land cover are a growing urban disturbance, yet national evidence on their frequency, ecological impacts, and social distribution remains limited. Using 141 U.S. urban-intersecting fires (1984–2025), we integrated fire perimeters, Landsat-derived NDVI and land-surface temperature, hydroclimate records, and census data. Annual fire counts did not increase, whereas burned area for larger events rose 0.22 km² yr⁻¹ (conventional <i>p</i> = 0.035; heteroskedasticity-robust <i>p</i> = 0.058), a positive trend sensitive to variance assumptions and to a few extreme fire years. Residents of fire-exposed tracts grew from 2.06 to 2.80 million despite stable per-capita exposure. Fires were preceded by short-term drying rather than long-term deficits, with wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash in 41–43% of events. High-severity pixels showed median NDVI declines of 41% and land-surface temperature increases of 2.35 °C, and 73% and 78% failed to recover greenness and temperature, respectively, within five years. Exposure concentrated in lower-density, owner-occupied, higher-income tracts, yet thermal recovery was faster in wealthier neighborhoods, revealing a two-stage inequality in who burns and who recovers. Because these dynamics are not unique to the United States, our framework transfers to fire-prone urban regions with comparable satellite and demographic records.</p>

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Increasing burned area and unequal ecological recovery in U.S. urban-intersecting fires

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月4日

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  • Dion Kucera,
  • G. Darrel Jenerette

摘要

Wildfires intersecting developed land cover are a growing urban disturbance, yet national evidence on their frequency, ecological impacts, and social distribution remains limited. Using 141 U.S. urban-intersecting fires (1984–2025), we integrated fire perimeters, Landsat-derived NDVI and land-surface temperature, hydroclimate records, and census data. Annual fire counts did not increase, whereas burned area for larger events rose 0.22 km² yr⁻¹ (conventional p = 0.035; heteroskedasticity-robust p = 0.058), a positive trend sensitive to variance assumptions and to a few extreme fire years. Residents of fire-exposed tracts grew from 2.06 to 2.80 million despite stable per-capita exposure. Fires were preceded by short-term drying rather than long-term deficits, with wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash in 41–43% of events. High-severity pixels showed median NDVI declines of 41% and land-surface temperature increases of 2.35 °C, and 73% and 78% failed to recover greenness and temperature, respectively, within five years. Exposure concentrated in lower-density, owner-occupied, higher-income tracts, yet thermal recovery was faster in wealthier neighborhoods, revealing a two-stage inequality in who burns and who recovers. Because these dynamics are not unique to the United States, our framework transfers to fire-prone urban regions with comparable satellite and demographic records.