Wildfires Trivia
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50 free Wildfires trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This wildfires trivia quiz covers the science, history and firefighting of the planet's biggest blazes. The easy questions come from the basics: what most wildfires in the United States are started by, the three sides of the fire triangle, which mascot tells you that only you can prevent wildfires, and which continent calls them bushfires. From there it moves into the details fire scientists and firefighters know: how fast a grass fire can travel, what a crown fire is, why lodgepole pine cones need heat, the Silurian fossils that are the earliest evidence of fire on Earth, the pyrocumulonimbus clouds that make their own weather, and the disasters that changed policy - Peshtigo in 1871, the Big Burn of 1910, Mann Gulch, Yellowstone in 1988, Black Saturday in Victoria and California's Camp Fire. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on wildfire, fire ecology and the individual fires before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our volcanoes, fire safety and firefighters quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly what share of wildfires in the United States are started by human activity?
Over 85%
Over 85% of US wildfires are human-started, led by campfires, power-line failures and equipment sparks; arson may account for over 20% of those.
Q 02Which of these is listed as a natural cause of wildfire ignition?
Sparks from rock falls
Sparks from rock falls round out the list of natural igniters alongside lightning, volcanic eruptions and spontaneous combustion.
Q 03What is a fire that burns suspended material at the treetop level called?
Crown
A crown fire burns suspended material — needles, leaves and branches — at canopy level; ignition of the canopy is termed crowning and depends on canopy density, height and continuity.
Q 04Ground fires that smolder slowly for months are typically fed by what?
Peat and buried roots
Ground fires are fed by peat, buried roots and duff and can smoulder for months; the 1997 Kalimantan peat fires started after the Mega Rice Project drained and dried the peatland.
Q 05Fires that carry flames from low vegetation into the tree canopy via small trees and vines are called what?
Ladder
Ladder fires carry flames from low vegetation into the canopy via small trees, downed logs and vines; invasive climbers such as kudzu and Old World climbing fern encourage them.
Q 06Together with heat and fuel, which element completes the fire triangle needed for a wildfire?
Oxygen
Oxygen completes the fire triangle with heat and fuel; high moisture stops ignition because energy goes into evaporating water before the fuel reaches its fire point.
Q 07Roughly how fast can a wildfire advance through grassland?
22 km/h (14 mph)
Wildfires can advance at about 22 km/h (14 mph) through grassland, roughly double the 10.8 km/h forward rate of spread typical in forests.
Q 08What is it called when wind carries burning embers ahead of the fire front to start new fires?
Spotting
Spotting is when wind carries burning embers ahead of the front to ignite new fires; in Australian bushfires, spot fires have been recorded as far as 20 km from the main front.
Q 09Large wildfires can generate spinning columns of flame with tornado-like force at speeds above what?
80 km/h (50 mph)
Large wildfires can spawn fire whirls, spinning columns of flame with winds above 80 km/h (50 mph); together with pyrocumulus clouds and strong convection columns they signal extreme fire behaviour.
Q 10US wildfire suppression operations are organised around a 24-hour 'fire day' that begins at what time?
10:00 a.m.
The US 24-hour fire day begins at 10:00 a.m., when daytime warmth drives intensity up; burn rates of smouldering logs can be five times higher by day thanks to lower humidity and stronger winds.
Q 11Roughly what share of Australia's land mass burned in the record 1974-75 wildfire season?
15%
About 117 million hectares, roughly 15% of Australia's land mass, burned in the 1974–75 season; most were remote, low-intensity grassland fires that caused few deaths and limited property damage.
Q 12Over the past century, roughly what share of global carbon emissions have come from wildfires?
20-25%
Wildfires have accounted for roughly 20–25% of global carbon emissions over the past century; fires worldwide release around 2 billion tonnes of carbon a year, though regrowth reabsorbs much of it.
Q 13Aerial fire retardants use ammonium phosphates and sulfates, the same agents found in what?
Fertilizers
Q 21Smokejumpers, wildland firefighters who mount the initial attack on remote fires, reach them how?
Parachute
Smokejumpers parachute into remote fires to attack them while they are still small; the United States has used them since 1940, and Russia's Avialesookhrana runs the world's largest smokejumper force.
Q 22The first operational smokejumper fire jumps in the US were made in July 1940 in which national forest?
Nez Perce (Idaho)
Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley made the first operational fire jump on 12 July 1940 at the Marten Creek fire in Idaho's Nez Perce National Forest, flying from the Ninemile base near Missoula.
Q 23How many smokejumpers and firefighters died in the 1949 Mann Gulch fire in Montana?
13
Retardant salts — ammonium phosphates and sulfates — are the same agents used in fertilizers, which is why retardant washing into streams or lakes can cause eutrophication.
Q 14Communities in the Philippines maintain fire lines of what width between the forest and their village?
5 to 10 metres
Philippine villages keep fire lines 5 to 10 metres wide between the forest and the settlement, and villagers patrol them during the summer months and dry seasons.
Q 15Charcoal fossils of which giant organism are the earliest evidence of wildfire on Earth?
The fungus Prototaxites
Charcoalified fragments of Prototaxites, a fungus that grew up to 8 metres tall, found in Late Silurian rocks from about 420 million years ago, are the earliest evidence of wildfire.
Q 16Charred peaks on Lepidodendron forests from which geological period are evidence of ancient crown fires?
Carboniferous
Charred crowns on Carboniferous Lepidodendron forests, about 300 million years ago, point to ancient crown fires; Jurassic gymnosperm forests by contrast show frequent, light surface fires.
Q 17Which president launched a 1937 fire prevention campaign that later featured Uncle Sam and Disney's Bambi?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a nationwide fire-prevention campaign in 1937 stressing human carelessness; later posters used Uncle Sam, Bambi characters and the Forest Service's bear mascot.
Q 18Which invasive tree, introduced to California, has increased wildfire intensity there?
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus, brought to California from Australia in the 1850s, sheds oily bark and leaves that intensify wildfires; invasive gamba grass plays a similar role in northern Australia.
Q 19Early fire lookout towers reported fires by telephone, heliograph and what living messenger?
Carrier pigeons
Lookouts locate smoke with an Osborne Fire Finder and also plot lightning strikes to watch for later ignition.
Q 20What is the sighting device in a lookout tower, used to pinpoint the bearing of a smoke column, called?
Osborne Fire Finder
The Osborne Fire Finder, devised by William Osborne of the US Forest Service around 1911, is a rotating sighting ring over a map that gives the bearing of a smoke column; the tower's small room is the cab.
13 men — twelve smokejumpers and a fire guard — died at Mann Gulch on 5 August 1949; foreman Wagner Dodge survived by lighting an escape fire and lying in its burned patch as the blaze passed.
Q 24Which author's posthumously published book Young Men and Fire investigated the Mann Gulch fire?
Norman Maclean
Maclean, a University of Chicago English professor, also wrote A River Runs Through It.
Q 25Whose slogan was updated in April 2001 from 'Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires' to '...Prevent Wildfires'?
Smokey Bear
Smokey Bear's new wording acknowledged big outbreaks in grasslands and made clear he was not against prescribed burns.
Q 26In which year did the US Forest Service authorise its bear mascot, now counted as his birthday?
1944
The Forest Service authorised Smokey Bear on 9 August 1944, the date kept as his birthday; artist Albert Staehle delivered the first poster that October, showing Smokey pouring water on a campfire.
Q 27The living mascot cub of the US fire-prevention campaign was rescued from a 1950 wildfire in which state?
New Mexico
The cub was found clinging to a burned tree after the Capitan Gap fire in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest in May 1950; with burned paws, he was first nicknamed Hotfoot Teddy.
Q 28The Forest Service's mascot bear got so much mail that in 1964 he was given what?
His own ZIP code
Smokey was given his own ZIP code, 20252, in 1964, when he was receiving more than 13,000 letters a week; the live bear at the National Zoo was famous for loving peanut butter sandwiches.
Q 29The cones of which conifer are sealed with resin that only melts in a fire, releasing the seeds?
Lodgepole pine
Lodgepole pine cones are sealed with resin that melts at around 45–60 °C in a fire, releasing seeds onto the cleared ground; this heat-triggered release, pyriscence, is the best-studied form of serotiny.
Q 30Which shade-intolerant tree needs fire to open gaps in the canopy so its seedlings can compete?
Giant sequoia
Giant sequoia seedlings need bare mineral soil and full sun; without fire, shade-tolerant white fir and incense cedar crowd them out beneath a closed canopy.