The objective of this report is to support the development of descriptive statistics and associated measures of uncertainty for characterizing, tracking, and better understanding the root causes of the U.S. fire burden by identifying the relevant costs and losses associated with fire-i.e., information needed to make cost-effective decisions for reducing the economic impact fires have on society-and identifying sources of data that would allow future statistical analysis, while highlighting areas where future research is needed. These data will be used to develop performance metrics, enabling future comparisons between the use of new fire mitigation technologies and their impact on the U.S. fire burden.