A plain-language summary of the first peer-reviewed federal accounting of shooting-related wildfires in the United States — with the critical distinctions the headlines always miss.

Based on: Short & Finney, Fire Safety Journal, Vol. 131 (July 2022) — USDA Forest Service / Bureau of Land Management research. Open access, peer-reviewed.

From 1992 through 2018 — a 27-year span — the federal Fire Program Analysis Fire-Occurrence Database contains records of approximately 2.2 million geo-referenced wildfire reports. Of all human-caused fires in that database that could be assigned a specific cause, only 0.2% were attributed to the combined category of “firearms and explosives use.” That combined category includes everything: military artillery, exploding targets, tracer rounds, muzzle-loaders, and conventional civilian rifle fire.

The researchers themselves note this figure is conservative — meaning the real number of shooting-related fires is likely somewhat higher than what records captured, because historical fire reports used inconsistent categories that made attribution difficult. Even accounting for that undercount, firearms-related fires represent a small fraction of total wildfire ignitions across the United States.

Here is where the data becomes essential for an honest conversation. The 2,226 fires are not a monolithic “shooting caused this” category. They break down as follows:

Half of all firearms-and-explosives fires over 27 years were caused by military ordnance — mortars, artillery, and military operations having nothing to do with civilian recreational shooting. That half of the total disappears the moment the conversation is about civilian shooters on public land.

Within the “inert target shooting” category — the 35% — the federal research identifies the ignition mechanism with precision. This is the part that matters most for precision rifle shooters.

The fires that grew large enough to make headlines were driven by specific causes — and those causes are instructive. The largest fire attributed to inert target shooting was the 2017 Detwiler Fire in California: 33,114 hectares burned, 131 structures destroyed. The largest fire attributed to exploding targets was the 2018 Sharps Fire in Idaho: 26,207 hectares burned, over $9 million to suppress.

The data is clear on when and where the risk concentrates: 91% of target-shooting wildfires larger than 121 hectares in the 11 conterminous western states ignited during May through October — the warm, dry fire season. The top states for inert-target-shooting fires were California, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada, in that order.

This pattern is consistent with the broader fire ecology of western public lands, not with anything specific to precision shooting. The same dry conditions that make any spark dangerous — campfires, vehicle exhaust, power lines, lightning — also elevate whatever marginal risk exists from any shooting activity.

The apparent increase in shooting-caused fires in recent decades has three explanations the researchers identify directly.

First, the old fire-reporting categories were poorly designed for capturing this cause. Better reporting categories adopted in 2020 will make future data more accurate, but also make historical comparisons difficult. The apparent “increase” may partly reflect better detection, not more fires.

Second, the surge of semi-automatic rifles chambered in government military-pattern calibers and fed with inexpensive imported steel-jacketed surplus ammunition increased the volume of exactly the projectile type most likely to cause ignitions — steel-core and steel-jacketed bullets fired rapidly at steel targets or rocks. This is categorically different from the bolt-action precision rifle fed with copper-jacketed match ammunition shooting at dirt berms or paper targets.

Third, exploding targets are a recent commercial product. They appeared in the early 2000s and represent a genuinely new ignition source that did not exist in prior decades.

The field incident record tells us fires happened. The laboratory record tells us why — and this is where the ammunition distinction becomes scientifically precise.

The key USFS laboratory study (Finney, Maynard & McAllister, 2013) fired roughly 500 rounds of commercial rifle ammunition at a steel plate and collected fragments in oven-dried peat. The findings were specific: ignitions occurred consistently with steel-component bullets and with solid-copper bullets. Fragment temperatures in the incandescent range — measured between approximately 1,200°F and 1,400°F — were recorded. The researchers concluded that ignition by commonly available rifle bullets was physically possible under critical fire-weather conditions.

*Note: these studies were done with bullets at muzzle velocity speeds, not the slower speeds at which most long range shooting bullets impact.

The study also tested solid-copper bullets striking granite — not steel. Ignitions occurred. This confirms that the hard surface does not have to be a steel target; natural rock in the field can provide the same fragmentation pathway. The investigators recovered bullet fragments from the ignition points and concluded the fragments themselves — not the target surface — were the primary ignition source.

Traditional lead-core, copper-jacketed hunting and match bullets — with no steel component and no pyrotechnic material — produced only one ignition in the laboratory work, compared to reliable ignitions from steel-component and solid-copper bullets. Separate agency guidance from the Bureau of Land Management explicitly describes lead-core bullets as less likely to cause ignitions than steel-core or solid-copper ammunition. That is a meaningful distinction, not a minor one.

*Note: these studies were done with bullets at muzzle velocity speeds, not the slower speeds at which most long range shooting bullets impact.

One additional nuance: solid-copper bullets — increasingly common in ELR and precision shooting as a lead-free alternative — occupy a different risk tier than traditional lead-core match bullets. The laboratory data placed solid-copper bullets in the same elevated ignition category as steel-component projectiles. Shooters using solid monolithic copper projectiles on rocky terrain during fire season should understand that this projectile type has a demonstrated ignition pathway that differs from conventional copper-jacketed lead-core ammunition.

*Note: these studies were done with bullets at muzzle velocity speeds, not the slower speeds at which most long range shooting bullets impact.

Here is what the federal data actually establishes, stated plainly:

Shooting-caused wildfires are a real phenomenon. They are documented, peer-reviewed, and federally tracked. Anyone who flatly denies that shooting can start fires is wrong.

The risk is not evenly distributed across shooting activities. Military ordnance, exploding targets, tracer ammunition, and steel-component projectiles account for the overwhelming share of the documented risk. Standard copper-jacketed lead-core precision rifle ammunition fired at appropriate targets is in a categorically different risk tier — explicitly described as such in the federal research.

The risk is seasonal and geographic. Dry western landscapes in summer fire season represent a genuinely elevated risk environment. The same shooter who fires without concern in winter or at a well-irrigated range faces different conditions in August in Nevada.

Steel targets and rocky terrain are the variables that matter most for conventional ammunition. A precision rifle shooting match-grade copper-jacketed lead-core ammunition at a dirt backstop or paper target presents a fundamentally different risk profile than surplus steel-core ammunition at a steel plate against rocky ground during fire season. Solid monolithic copper projectiles occupy a similarly elevated risk tier in laboratory testing and should be treated accordingly in rocky or dry terrain.

Know the regulations where you shoot. Exploding targets are banned on most USFS lands and subject to seasonal BLM restrictions. Seasonal fire closures apply broadly to all shooting on public lands when conditions reach extreme thresholds. These restrictions apply regardless of ammunition type.

*.2% of wildland fires is equivalent to 2 of every 1,000 … and of those, incredibly few, if any, are from long range shooting.

The federal data confirms that shooting-related wildfires are real, but public incident records do not always identify the exact projectile construction involved. The named incidents below are separated into three categories: first, cases where agencies or contemporaneous reporting specifically described an ordinary bullet fragment, ricochet, or bullet-on-rock / bullet-on-steel ignition mechanism; second, fires officially attributed to firearms or inert-target shooting, but without enough public detail to identify the exact projectile type; and third, additional named fires classified in the peer-reviewed federal dataset as inert-target-shooting fires, where public incident detail is sparse.

Identified by Short and Finney and classified under the inert-target-shooting category. Federal classification confirmed; projectile construction not specified in public records.

Shepard Humphries is a leading expert in ELR shooting operations and events. He is an NRA Appointed Training Counselor in multiple disciplines and has completed the Range Development & Operations course. He operates Nomad Rifleman and has published numerous books and articles relating to precision shooting. In 2022 he led the team that set the world record longest shot at 4.4 miles.