Wildfires are coming for America’s suburbs

Suburban sprawl in America has led to explosive population growth in wildfire-prone areas: buying land in between paved cities and forests has become increasingly popular due to its scenic views and cheap price tag, but those same areas in the “wildland-urban interface” are naturally fire prone. Sachi Kitajima Mulkey reports for Grist:

A recent study in Natural Hazards, a Nature journal, found that the expansion of this kind of housing in tandem with climate change quadrupled the risk of destructive wildfire in California. In January 2025, the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out in the shrubby sprawl surrounding Los Angeles, forcing more than 200,000 people to evacuate and burning down thousands of structures. Earlier this month, three large wildfires struck suburban areas of Spokane, Washington, the state’s second-biggest city.

Over a third all homes in the continental U.S. are now considered to be in the wildland-urban interface. Chris Buckley, a public information officer with the U.S. Forest Service, said that the chances of a fire increase as more people move into one of these areas. Wildland-urban interface neighborhoods are one of the most rapidly growing types of land in the country.