DOI: 10.6078/d1k12n
title: Wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas wells in the western United States with disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations

description: The western United States is home to most of the nation’s oil and gas
 production and, increasingly, wildfires. We examined historical threats of
 wildfires for oil and gas wells, the extent to which wildfires are
 projected to threaten wells as climate change progresses, and the exposure
 of human populations to these wells. From 1984–2019, we found that
 cumulatively 102,882 wells were located in wildfire burn areas and 348,853
 people were exposed (resided ≤ 1 km). During this period, we observed a
 five-fold increase in the number of wells in wildfire burn areas and a
 doubling of the population within 1 km of these wells. These trends are
 projected to increase by the late century, likely threatening human
 health. Approximately 2.9 million people reside within 1 km of wells in
 areas with high wildfire risk, and Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native
 American people have disproportionately high exposure to
 wildfire-threatened wells.
description: # Wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas wells in the western United
 States with disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations [Access
 this dataset on Dryad](https://doi.org/10.6078/D1K12N) ### Authors David
 J.X. González*, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Zehua Liu, Mary D. Willis, Yan
 Feng, Lisa M. McKenzie, Benjamin B. Steiger, Jiali Wang, Nicole C. Deziel,
 and Joan A. Casey *Correspondence to
 [djxgonz@berkeley.edu](mailto:djxgonz@berkeley.edu) ## Summary The dataset
 deposited here is associated with a peer-reviewed study published in *One
 Earth* in June 2024. Recent increases in wildfire activity in the Western
 United States have coincided with the proliferation of oil and gas
 development and substantial population growth in the wildland-urban
 interface. From 1984–2019, we observed a five-fold increase in the number
 of wells in wildfire burn areas and a doubling of the population within 1
 km of these wells. These trends are projected to increase by the late
 century, likely threatening human health, with disproportionate impacts on
 racially marginalized populations. We obtained geospatial data on the
 locations and operation dates of oil and gas wells from Enverus
 DrillingInfo. We intersected each well in the study region with a
 geospatial dataset on wildfires in the United States, drawing from both
 Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) and the National Interagency
 Fire Center (NIFC). Once we identified areas where wildfires and wells
 intersected, we used gridded population data from SocScape-30 to estimate
 how many people were exposed to these wells. To estimate future risks, we
 incorporated a gridded dataset of the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KDBI),
 an indicator of wildfire risk, made available by the authors of Brown et
 al. (2021). Links to these datasets are provided below. ## Data and file
 structure ### Interim #### wells\_wildfire\_intersection\_state\_year
 (folder) Set of geospatial data (sf objects saved as R data files), each
 of which includes polygons for the area of intersection between wildfire
 burn areas and 1 km boundaries around oil and gas wells. People living
 within this intersection zone would be considered exposed to these wells.
 #### wells\_wildfire\_intersection\_state\_year (.csv) Tabular data *
 *state* - Two-letter abbreviation for U.S. state * *year* - Year of the
 observation * *intersection_area_km2* - Total area (in square km) of
 overlap between wildfires and a 1 km buffer around oil/gas wells ###
 Processed #### wells\_wildfire\_state\_year Tabular data counts of the
 wells in wildfire burn areas by state and year. * *state* - Two-letter
 abbreviation for U.S. state * *year* - Year of the observation * *n_wells*
 - Count of oil and gas wells in wildfire burn areas * *n_wells_buffer_1km*
 - Count of oil and gas wells within 1 km of wildfire burn areas ####
 pop\_exposed\_state\_year Tabular data with estimates of the population
 exposed to wells in wildfire burn areas by state and year. * *state* -
 Two-letter abbreviation for U.S. state * *year* - Year of the observation
 * *pop_exposed_n* - Estimate of population exposed to wells in wildfire
 burn areas (residing ≤ 1 km) #### wells\_individual\_wildfires Tabular
 data with * *wildfire_id* - Identifier for the wildfire * *wildfire_name*
 - Name for the wildfire provided by the reporting agency * *year* - Year
 wildfire started * *state* - State the wildfire started in * *data_source*
 - Source of data, either MTBS or NIFC * *n_wells* - Count of oil and gas
 wells in wildfire burn area * *n_wells_buffer_1km* - Count of oil and gas
 wells within 1 km of the wildfire burn area * *n_wells_dates* - Count of
 oil and gas wells with at least one operational date in wildfire burn area
 * *n_wells_dates_buffer_1km* - Count of oil and gas wells with at least
 one operational date within 1 km of the wildfire burn area *
 *wildfire_area_km2* - Total area of the wildfire (in square km) ####
 wells\_kbdi Tabular data with, for each well in the dataset, the maximum
 Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI) value for each of the three time periods
 considered. These KBDI estimates are derived from data products provided
 by Brown et al. (2021). * *api_number* - Unique identifier for each well *
 *kbdi_max_2017* - The assessed KBDI value for each well for 2017 *
 *kbdi_max_2050* - The assessed KBDI value for each well for mid-century
 (2046-2054) * *kbdi_max_2090* - The assessed KBDI value for each well for
 late century (2086-2094) * *well_on_federal_land* - Indicator (1 = yes, 0
 = no) for whether the well is located on federal land ## Sharing and
 Access Information ### Publicly Available Datasets We obtained shapefile
 data on wildfires from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) and the
 National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). Gridded population for the United
 States, including data disaggregated by race/ethnicity, were provided by
 SocScape. ### Other Datasets We obtained data on oil and gas wells from
 Enverus DrillingInfo, a private data aggregation service that makes data
 available to researchers upon request. Gridded historical and projected
 future KBDI estimates were requested from and provided by the authors of
 Brown et al. (2021). ## Code The codebase for this study has been
 deposited on [Zenodo](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8222874). Analyses
 for this project were conducted using R.