by M. Lynch and A. Evans. In 2020, wildfire burned 1,068,373 acres in the Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico), which is greater than the average number of acres burned annually in these two states over the previous ten-year period.” Arizona had significantly more wildfire (929,522 acres) than its ten-year average (305,623 acres), while New Mexico had fewer acres of wildfire 138,851 acres) than its ten-year average (299,773 acres). Unplanned human ignitions made up 28 percent and 12 percent of wildfire acres in Arizona and New Mexico respectively (though these estimates excluded wildfires with an unknown cause). Download the full PDF here.
