New satellite data confirms extreme wildfires have more than doubled in 20 years. Forestry experts and the Trump administration say neglected fuel loads are turning bad fire seasons into catastrophic ones — and it’s time to clear the underbrush, literally and legislatively.

Wildfires Doubled in 20 Years — Trump Pushes Active Forest Management as the Fix

The numbers are no longer in dispute. A landmark analysis of two decades of NASA satellite data, published last year and still shaping the policy conversation in Washington, found that the world’s most extreme wildfires have more than doubled in frequency since 2003 — and grown roughly 2.3 times more intense. In the temperate conifer forests of the American West, the increase in extreme fire events was even sharper, jumping more than elevenfold.

For families in timber country, that’s not an abstraction. It’s the difference between a controlled burn that clears brush and a crown fire that levels a town.

What the Data Actually Shows

To their credit, the researchers behind the study — led by ecologist Calum Cunningham at the University of Tasmania — didn’t shy away from pointing to a warming climate as the biggest driver of the trend, particularly in boreal forests where thawing permafrost and hotter nighttime temperatures are extending fire seasons. That’s the mainstream scientific read, and it’s worth stating plainly rather than pretending otherwise.

But here’s where the Trump administration and a lot of working foresters push back on the conversation stopping there: climate is the backdrop, not the whole story. What actually determines whether a spark becomes a controlled burn or a catastrophic inferno is what’s sitting on the forest floor when that spark lands. And on that front, decades of federal land policy have left America’s forests loaded with fuel.