New report finds Colorado wildfires are larger, more frequent and increasingly unpredictable

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — New research out of Colorado State University (CSU) found that wildfires have increased in size, frequency and variability over the last 30 years in the Centennial State.

The author of the report, Thomas Gifford, is an environmental economics Ph.D. candidate at CSU. The research was published in March of 2025 and is titled " Battle Scars: Trends in Wildfire Size and Impact across Colorado ."

"What drew me to wildfires in the first place is that they aren't in and of themselves a bad thing. In fact, they're ecologically necessary," Gifford said. "It's really hard to predict whether a given year is going to be a good year or a bad year, but one thing we can say confidently is that these, you know, historically unprecedented megafires — like the Lee Fire that just