Last year, 66,255 wildfires erupted in the U.S., burning through more than 7.3 million acres from California to the Florida Panhandle. It was the most fires since 2017, and those were the ones that were reported. The final count is bound to be higher.
This year, wildfire season has already begun, though the threat never seems to diminish, thanks to a warming climate that turns forests and grasslands into tinderboxes. And it’s not just humans’ lives and homes that are again imperiled. National Wildlife Week, which started April 3, is a timely reminder of the deer, birds, fish, reptiles and other animals who are killed or displaced by fires every year.
It’s impossible to know exactly how many. The massive 2020 North Complex fire in California torched more than 318,000 acres, uprooting countless bears and coyotes along with anyone else in its path. That same year, an estimated 480 million animals perished in bushfires in New South Wales, Australia.
