Widlfire risk is projected to increase across the Southeast by the end of the century.

Rising temperatures and increases in the duration and intensity of drought are expected to increase wildfire occurrence and also reduce the effectiveness of prescribed fire in the Southeast. While this region experiences the highest number of wildfires in the country, prescribed fire is currently more common than wildfire in Southeastern forests. However, as fire seasons lengthen in the future, the window for prescribed burning may decrease because of increased fuel flammability.
Decades of wildfire suppression has increased the potential for crown fires, and model projections indicate that wildfires are likely to occur more frequently in the Southeast in the future. Annual fire probability, calculated solely with climate data and physical principles, is projected to increase by 20% to 80% across the Southeast by the end of the century, with the greatest increases in the southern Appalachians. The incidence of atmospheric conditions that contribute to large and erratic fire behavior, measured by the Haines Index, is also projected to occur more 8 to 11% more frequently by the end of the century. The limitation for these sorts of projections is that they do not account for changes in land use, fire suppression rates, or vegetation changes.