STATES WITH THE GREATEST PERCENTAGE OF THEIR LAND AREA BURNED BY FIRE IN RECENT YEARS
The West sees most of the large fires in the United States due to large expanses of dry brush and trees and long periods of drought. However, one non-Western state is on this list, Florida, especially with the extreme drought conditions in 2007 and expansive pine forests (and neighboring Georgia ranks #11).
Statistics listed below are the percentage of the land mass burned in wildfires (but not controlled burns, like with fields or wildfire prevention) per year. Thus, Idaho on average has had 1.15% of the entire state which had burned each year! 2007 statistics include data through October 25.
STATE
1. Idaho
2. Nevada
3. Oregon
4. Alaska
5. California
6. Arizona
6. Utah
8. Florida
9. Washington
10. Montana
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL LAND
AREA BURNED BY WILDFIRES
PER YEAR (2002-2007)
1.15
0.81
0.68
0.67
0.57
0.54
0.54
0.52
0.47
0.41
The #50 state is Illinois, with only 0.0015% of its land area burning in wildfires each year on average (mostly due to its extensive farm land).
