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Flammable Planet: Wildfires and the Social Cost of Carbon

Key Takeaways:
Globally: wildfires burn roughly 865 million acres of land—an area more than five times the size of Texas
In the United States, approximately 7 to 9 million acres burn each year
The current scientific consensus is that wildfire risk will increase in many regions of the world as climate change leads to:
- Warmer temperatures
- More frequent droughts
- Changing precipitation patterns
- More frequent and intense events
- Longer fire seasons
- More areas facing fire risk
- Increasing fire sizes (in terms of area burned)
Most continents are expected to experience an increase in forest fires, with Australia, Europe, and North America likely to be particularly affected
Some studies predict a 50 to 100 percent increase in area burned in the United States by 2050, with the most severe changes occurring in Western states
Damages from climate change-induced wildfires are not currently included in the social cost of carbon (SCC), which is used by the government to evaluate regulations impacting greenhouse gas emissions
The omission of wildfires from the SCC could lead policymakers to underestimate damages from climate change when crafting important policies
Society faces multiple types of costs from wildfires:
- Market damages (such as from lost timber and property)
- Non-market damages (such as health effects and loss of ecological services)
- Adaptation costs (for fire prevention, suppression, and rehabilitation)
While researchers regularly analyze the costs of many of these damages, few studies have attempted to quantify the total costs from wildfires
After analyzing research about each of these wildfire damage categories, we have compiled low, middle, and high estimates for various types of wildfire damages, per 100 acres burned (see Table 1 on p. 26)
Research suggests that the total costs of a wildfire are typically 10 to 50 times its suppression costs, and given that the United States spends roughly $2.0 to $2.5 billion on wildfire suppression per year, we estimate that the total cost of U.S. wildfires is presently between $20 billion and $125 billion annually
We predict that future climate change-induced wildfires will cost the United States between $10 billion and $62.5 billion annually by 2050, with a middle estimate of $22.5 billion, amounts that represents roughly 0.06 percent to 0.36 percent of projected U.S. GDP
Similar estimates for global climate change-induced wildfires imply potential damages of $50 to $300 billion annually in 2050, with a middle estimate of $100 billion

Flammable Planet: Wildfires and the Social Cost of Carbon

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