From the devastating Los Angeles blazes in January to the widespread fires in Canada in 2024 and Hawaii in 2023, it often feels like our planet is experiencing an escalating number of massive wildfires that leave communities in ruins. Yet, concrete scientific data on whether these economically damaging infernos are genuinely on the rise has been surprisingly scarce, until now.
A compelling new study has just confirmed what many suspected: catastrophic wildfires, those that inflict both immense economic losses and tragic human fatalities, are indeed occurring more frequently. This research draws a strong connection between these fires and climate change. The past ten years, in particular, have witnessed a notable surge in these costly and deadly events, according to findings published this Thursday in the prestigious journal Science.
“This serves as a significant wake-up call,” commented Brian Harvey, a professor specializing in forest fire science at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study. “We inhabit a naturally flammable planet, and that flammability is only intensifying.”
While fire plays a vital and natural role in many ecosystems, climate change is exacerbating the problem by creating longer, hotter, and drier fire seasons. Adding to this, decades of human efforts to suppress wildfires have inadvertently led to an accumulation of fuel, and the expansion of human settlements deeper into fire-prone areas further amplifies the risk.
This combination creates the perfect storm for destructive fires to erupt in urban environments, explained Calum Cunningham, a wildfire scientist from the University of Tasmania and the lead author of the new study.
“We’ve essentially set the stage for fires to occur under the most extreme conditions — with abundant fuel and on the worst possible days,” Dr. Cunningham stated. “This inevitably results in catastrophic, uncontrollable blazes.”
Previous studies had sometimes offered a different perspective. For instance, a 2016 paper examining damaging fires worldwide from 1984 to 2013 found minimal evidence of an increase in direct fire-related losses.
However, with the climate shifting so rapidly, and numerous massive fires occurring every year since that earlier study concluded, Dr. Cunningham aimed to answer a critical question: Is the increasing frequency of these large, damaging fires a verifiable trend, or simply a perceived one?
To address this, the researchers meticulously analyzed two comprehensive datasets, one public and one private, containing wildfire-related costs and fatalities from around the globe between 1980 and 2023. They identified the 200 most financially impactful fires, adjusting losses relative to each country’s gross domestic product to ensure fairness across nations with varying economic scales. Fires resulting in ten or more direct fatalities were also included, bringing the total number of the most damaging wildfires to 242.
Their analysis of these 242 wildfires revealed a striking trend: the number of disastrous wildfires had increased by more than fourfold from 1980 to 2023. Remarkably, almost half of these fires (43 percent) occurred within just the last decade of the study period. Additionally, 43 of these wildfire disasters surpassed the $1 billion mark in damages during that time frame. (It’s worth noting that the previous U.S. administration had indicated it would cease tracking billion-dollar disasters within the United States.)
These findings clearly diverge from the 2016 paper, which is now less than a decade old. Yet, Cristina Santín, a wildfire scientist with the Spanish National Research Council and an author of that earlier work, expressed no surprise at the new study’s different conclusion. She welcomed this updated examination of wildfire trends.
“This research undeniably proves that the situation is worsening,” Dr. Santín asserted. “We must learn to adapt and coexist with fire. This is our unavoidable reality, and it’s here to stay.”
Geographically, these calamitous fires were predominantly concentrated in western North America, southern Europe, and southern Australia. While most occurred in affluent regions with high property values, they were not exclusively confined to such areas.
Wildfire disasters also impacted tropical zones and the far northern reaches, largely propelled by unusually severe droughts. Even more remote areas like Nepal, which typically receive less attention from Western media, experienced these destructive events. In fact, every continent except Antarctica was affected.
Dr. Cunningham summarized the spread succinctly: “They’re everywhere.”
The research team then investigated whether the rise in disastrous wildfires could be linked to climate change.
Their analysis showed a strong correlation between these fires and “fire weather”—a dangerous combination of powerful, dry winds, soaring temperatures, and prolonged drought. Other investigations have also established that such extreme fire weather conditions are becoming more common due to climate change.
“It’s undeniable that these events are fueled by extreme weather,” Dr. Cunningham emphasized. While he stressed that climate change isn’t the sole cause of every disastrous wildfire in the study, “it certainly sets the stage for them.”
He concluded, “Climate change is creating more opportunities for truly catastrophic fires to ignite.”
Overall, these findings present a “very robust body of evidence” indicating a rise in the socioeconomic costs of destructive wildfires, with climate playing a major role, according to Dr. Harvey. “This powerfully reinforces the urgent need to better understand and effectively address these rapidly evolving circumstances.”