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California Wildfire Activity: A Historical Overview

This interface presents historical wildfire incidents in California for public understanding. It is not intended for real-time decision-making or emergency response.

Project context

Audience

Public, policy, and research audiences

Objective

To support careful understanding of historical wildfire activity and reduce misinterpretation of reported data

Scope

Historical data only; not intended for real-time or operational use

How to read this data

  • Trends reflect reported incidents, not necessarily actual fire occurrence
  • A small number of large fires account for most total acreage burned
  • Differences across regions may reflect variations in reporting and data completeness, not just actual wildfire activity.

Filter historical data

Refine the year range, counties, and causes to adjust all views below.

Year range

Total Fires

0

Total Acres Burned

0

Avg. Fire Size (acres)

0

Key insight

Most wildfire incidents are small in size, but a small number of large fires account for the majority of total area burned.

Historical data (1992–2020) · Reported incidents

Data reflects reported incidents and may include revisions or incomplete records.

Reported Wildfire Incidents Over Time

Changes may reflect reporting practices as well as real-world activity.

Fires (left axis)
Acres (right axis)

Drag to set year range:

2000

How to interpret responsibly

  • Do: Use this data to understand broad historical patterns in wildfire activity
  • Do not: Use this interface for prediction or operational decision-making
  • Do: Recognize that a small number of large fires can dominate total acreage
  • Do not: Assume reported trends directly reflect real-world fire occurrence

Incident-level data

Values may include missing or updated records.

Incident records (top 200 by current sort)

Name Year County Cause Acres ▼

Values may include missing or updated records.

Data & methodology

Source

US Forest Service FPA-FOD v6 (1992–2020), filtered to California

Data provenance

  • Dataset version: US Forest Service FPA-FOD v6 (1992–2020)
  • Last updated: April 17, 2026
  • Preprocessing: Standardized county names, simplified cause categories, and addressed missing values to improve consistency.

Interface

Interactive dashboard to explore historical wildfire activity across California. The map shows ignition locations, where circle size represents acres burned and color represents cause. The dashboard also includes a monthly trend and a sortable incidents table.

Processing

  • Filtered to California incidents
  • Preprocessed into compact JSON
  • Standardized county names (for example “053” → “Monterey”)
  • Standardized wildfire cause categories to ensure consistency across records
  • Filled missing values such as:
    • fire_name → “Unnamed Fire”
    • county → “Unknown”

Scope

Historical wildfire incident data only; not intended for real-time use