Increasing Large Wildfire in the Eastern United States.

Large wildfires are increasing across numerous regions of the globe. While the West has remained a primary focus of wildfire research and resources in the U.S., recent signals suggest that wildfire risk is increasing in the eastern U.S. as well. We conducted an in‐depth assessment of large (>200 ha) wildfire regime characteristics (size, number, total hectares burned, seasonality, probability of occurrence, and ignition source) over a 36‐year period across the Eastern Temperate Forests of the U.S. to quantify geographic patterns in large‐wildfire regime and identify changing spatio‐temporal large wildfire patterns. We found increases in large wildfire size, occurrence, number, and total hectares burned in the southern and eastern regions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. In contrast, large wildfires declined or were minimal in northern ecoregions. We demonstrate increasing large wildfires across some of the most populated regions of the United States. Plain Language Summary: Large wildfires are increasing across numerous regions of the globe. While the western U.S. has remained a primary focus for wildfire research and resources, recent signals suggest that wildfire risk is also increasing in the eastern U.S. We assess patterns and changes in large (>200 ha) wildfire size, number, total hectares burned, seasonality, probability of occurrence, and ignition source over 36 years in the Eastern Temperate Forests, a region comprising most of the eastern U.S. We found that large wildfire size, occurrence, number, and total hectares burned increased in the southern and eastern portions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. In contrast, large wildfires declined or there were too few wildfires to assess in northern portions of the Eastern Temperate Forests. Our findings suggest the potential for increasing wildfire risk across some of the most populated regions of the U.S. Key Points: Large wildfires are increasing in portions of the eastern U.S.The southern and eastern regions experienced the greatest increases in large wildfire number, occurrence, size, and total hectares burnedLarge wildfire seasonality shifted across the Eastern Temperate Forests [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]