Factors that influence wildfire

Several general factors are important for understanding wildfire activity and especially for modeling how the wildfire risk will evolve from climate change. While fuel load and type are obvious, the connections to vegetation and climate are not so simple. Climate certainly influences vegetation and to a lesser degree vegetation influences climate. The weather leading up to and during a wildfire event has a big influence on how much area burns in any one fire season, but fuel loads – and therefore fire activity – are also dependent on the extent and behavior of prior wildfire events in the same location and how climate variability has impacted the vegetation type and growth. The following sections summarize some of these considerations.¹