Wyoming Had Below Average Fire Season In 2023

2023 was a slow fire season for Wyoming State firefighting crews.

According to the Wyoming State Forestry Division, there were 539 reported fires across the state, which ended up burning about 11-thousand acres of land.

On average, there’s about 874 fires that burn about 106-thousand acres of Cowboy State land.

Jerod Delay is the Assistant State Forester Fire Management Officer.

He says there were several factors and some good timing that contributed to the slow fire season.

A way above normal snowpack and it came off probably at a good rate where it didn’t all come off at once, it was kind of a gradual melt. We didn’t have a lot of spring flooding around either, just kind of came off slowly and then we had kind of a cool summer and it seemed like when we got dry, or started to get dry and warm, we’d catch some rain. Some timely moisture across the state at places.”

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, nationwide, 2023 was the slowest fire season in 25 years.

Firefighters dealt with about 60% fewer fires compared to the 10-year average.

About 2.63 million acres of land burned in 2023.

That last time the yearly national acreage number was that low or lower, was in 1998, when a little less than 1.33 million acres burned.