Large wildfires are becoming more frequent in the eastern U.S., signaling accelerated risks to the built environment, human health and national security. To help address these threats, a researcher at Penn State is leading a new network - the Eastern Fire Network (EFNet) - that was awarded a $1.74 million, three-year grant.
Erica Smithwick, professor of geography in Penn State's Department of Geography, will convene scholars across the University and five partner institutions to establish a fire research agenda and big-picture goals for future studies. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is funding EFNet in collaboration with the Buckminster Fuller Institute and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Fire Science Innovations through Research and Education program.
"We think of wildfires happening mainly in the western states," said Smithwick, a longtime fire researcher who directs the Climate Consortium at Penn State. "But fire conditions are changing more quickly in eastern states than we anticipated."
Among those conditions, she said, are autumn droughts that appear to be more numerous and extreme. Hazards in the Northeast are especially worrisome given dense populations and the close integration of urban communities, infrastructure and forests, she added.
In fact, the region has the most U.S. residents living in fire-prone forests, said Smithwick, principal investigator for EFNet. For an earlier project in the mid-Atlantic region, a fire manager warned her that fires, in a worst case, could sweep across New Jersey in 48 hours.
EFNet will be the first organization of its kind centering on the East. In 2023, 19 states known as the Eastern Area saw 56% more acres burned versus an average year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Severe conditions persisted into 2024, when wildfires claimed 207,000 acres in the area, the center reported.
"Researchers have become more focused on threats to communities and overall fire patterns in the East - and whether we're prepared for different scenarios," said Smithwick, also an associate director at Penn State's Institute of Energy and the Environment (IEE). "Even small fires can have large impacts in ecological and property damage, health hazards from wildfire smoke and the economy. It doesn't take a big fire to destroy lives."
EFNet plans to build on prior wildfire research in western states and explore collaborations spanning biology, ecology, social services and beyond. Participants will identify questions to inform and structure longer-term fire studies in the East, organizers said.
Researchers noted core themes for the work, such as overall regional conditions for fire, seasonal droughts, predictive modeling for fire risks and specific vulnerabilities confronting communities. For example, a research team at IEE is evaluating perceptions of wildfire smoke risks and responses in the Northeast, where long-transported smoke is exacerbating air-quality issues.
Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, explained that EFNet goals also align with the transdisciplinary research institute's themes.
"Environmental hazards, social systems and governance are intertwined," Smithwick said. "By bringing people together across these connected areas, we can develop capacity for solutions - for safer communities - in a time of uncertainty."
Manzhu Yu, an associate professor of geography at Penn State, led a seed-grant effort for that project and is a co-principal investigator with EFNet.
"Long-distance wildfire smoke is no longer the problem of just the western United States," Yu said on Growing Impact, an IEE podcast. "People are getting confusing, mismatched information and are usually not prepared for this."
Winslow Hansen, another co-principal investigator with EFNet, said forests in general are up against "profound environmental challenges." A scientist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Hansen is the director of the Western Fire and Forest Resilience Collaborative (WFFRC), a multi-institute initiative working to develop actionable fire science in the western U.S. in partnership with the land managers.
"In the Northeast, we know relatively less about historical fires and what the future might hold compared to our western forests," Hansen said. "Together we can set a foundation to understand and predict the biggest threats and how to address them."
Over the last century, Hansen said, Northeast forests weren't thought to be as susceptible to burning. But that's changing with drier conditions.
"We've made tremendous progress in understanding the western U.S. fire crisis. These lessons can accelerate advances in eastern forests," said Hansen, who will serve as liaison between EFNet and WFFRC.
Plans for EFNet involve regular meetings, workshops and in-person convenings to help bridge existing networks of fire science and research. Graduate students will have opportunities to join, too, in part through a new transdisciplinary fellowship in wildland fire science that builds on the Transdisciplinary Research on Environment and Society dual-title degree program co-directed by Smithwick.
At the end of three years, the group wants to have developed a "clear research agenda that can move the scientific community forward - for instance, to help graduate students shape dissertations that are most responsive to decision maker needs and rapidly evolving questions," Hansen said.
"We have this window of opportunity to get ahead of the curve, particularly in the Northeast," he said, noting that even New York City saw fires in fall 2024 in Central Park and Prospect Park. "It's critical that we prepare for a wide range of alternate futures."
Other participating institutions are Columbia University, the Tall Timbers nonprofit, the University of Florida and North Carolina State University. Smithwick is currently on sabbatical through June 2026 as a Bullard Fellow at Harvard Forest, a department at Harvard University, where she is synthesizing data and field studies to better understand wildfire risk in eastern temperate forests.
