A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned

Summary

This study, published in Nature Communications in 2025, examines whether recent upward trends in wildfire extent across North American forests have meaningfully reduced the accumulated fire deficit — the shortfall in fire activity relative to historical norms. Drawing on dendrochronological records, fire history data, and contemporary fire occurrence datasets across diverse forest types, the authors infer that fire suppression and land-use change have created deficits that recent increases in burned area have not yet offset. The findings suggest that forests across much of North America remain substantially outside their historical range of fire variability, with implications for ecosystem structure, fuel accumulation, and long-term resilience.

UK applicability

This study is directly focused on North American forest systems and has limited direct applicability to UK land management or policy. However, the broader conceptual framework around fire regime disruption, historical baselines, and ecosystem resilience may inform UK and European debates on rewilding, prescribed burning on upland heathlands and peatlands, and the use of fire as a management tool.

Key measures

Area burned (historical vs contemporary); fire return intervals; fire deficit magnitude across forest types and regions; fire frequency departure metrics

Outcomes reported

The study assessed the gap between historical fire regimes and contemporary fire activity across diverse North American forests, measuring whether recent increases in area burned have closed the long-standing fire deficit. It likely reports that a substantial fire deficit persists across most forest types despite observed increases in recent fire activity.

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