Factors affecting wildfire suppression costs in the United States: a systematic review

Purpose Over the past two decades, wildfire-burned area and U.S. suppression costs have risen sharply, from $239 million in 1985 to $4.3 billion in 2021. This review identifies the factors that influence direct wildfire suppression expenditures in the United States, evaluates how suppression-cost modelling has evolved and defines priorities for more integrated decision-support frameworks. Design/methodology/approach Following PRISMA 2020, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect and AGRICOLA were searched for records published from 1985 to 2023. After deduplication and eligibility screening, 76 studies were included. Evidence was synthesized by driver category, model family, spatial and temporal scale and methodological limitation. An author-keyword co-occurrence analysis in VOSviewer mapped the field's intellectual structure. Findings Fire size and duration, difficult terrain and access, severe weather and fire behaviour and wildland–urban interface development or values at risk were the most consistently supported cost drivers. Facts for fuel treatments, land ownership, detection and response time and policy effects were more context-dependent. Four bibliometric clusters connect biophysical fire dynamics, probabilistic risk assessment, suppression management and cost modelling and WUI-focused economic optimization. Existing models rarely integrate dynamic climate projections, human behaviour, operational feedback, uncertainty and the option value of alternative suppression strategies. Originality/value The review combines systematic evidence synthesis with bibliometric mapping and organizes suppression-cost determinants into biophysical, operational, institutional and socio-economic domains. The findings support risk-adjusted agency budgeting, WUI land-use planning, standardized interagency cost accounting and targeted evaluation of prevention and early-detection investments.