From the recent fires in Los Angeles and Canada to the devastating blazes in Hawaii, it feels like our planet is experiencing more widespread, destructive wildfires every year. However, scientific evidence on whether the most economically damaging fires are genuinely on the rise has been scarce—until now.
A groundbreaking new study has concluded that catastrophic wildfires, those causing both significant economic losses and human fatalities, are indeed becoming more frequent. Crucially, the research strongly links these escalating events to climate change, noting a particular surge in costly, deadly fires over the last decade. This urgent finding was published in the esteemed journal Science.
Brian Harvey, a professor of forest fire science at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study, called it “a pretty big wake-up call.” He added, “We live on a flammable planet, and that flammability is increasing.”
While fire is a natural and often beneficial component of many ecosystems, climate change is exacerbating the problem by creating longer, hotter, and drier fire seasons. Compounding this, decades of human intervention through artificial wildfire suppression have led to an accumulation of fuel, and communities are increasingly expanding into fire-prone areas. This combination creates a perfect storm for devastating urban fires, explained Calum Cunningham, a wildfire scientist at the University of Tasmania and lead author of the new study.
“We’ve predisposed fire to occur under the most extreme conditions, where there’s lots of fuel, on the worst possible days,” Dr. Cunningham stated. “That leads to catastrophic, uncontrollable fires.”
Previous research, such as a 2016 paper examining global fire trends from 1984 to 2013, found little evidence of an increase in direct fire-related losses. However, the climate is changing rapidly, with numerous massive fires occurring annually since that study concluded. This prompted Dr. Cunningham to investigate whether the perceived increase in damaging fires was accurate or simply anecdotal.
To address this, researchers analyzed public and private datasets covering wildfire-related costs and fatalities worldwide from 1980 to 2023. They pinpointed the 200 most expensive fires, adjusting for national gross domestic product to ensure fair comparisons across different income levels. They also included all wildfires resulting in ten or more direct fatalities, bringing the total to 242 highly damaging events.
The findings were stark: the number of disastrous wildfires more than quadrupled between 1980 and 2023. Nearly half of these incidents (43%) occurred in the most recent decade of the study period. Additionally, 43 wildfires in this timeframe caused over $1 billion in damages. (It’s worth noting that the Trump administration announced in May it would cease tracking billion-dollar disasters in the United States.)
Cristina Santín, a wildfire scientist with the Spanish National Research Council and an author of the earlier 2016 paper, expressed no surprise at the new study’s contrasting results, welcoming an updated examination of wildfire trends. “This is proof that things are getting worse,” Dr. Santín affirmed. “We need to adapt to live with fire. This is our reality, and it’s not going anywhere.”
These destructive fires predominantly occurred in western North America, southern Europe, and southern Australia, often in affluent areas with high property values, but not exclusively. Wildfire disasters also struck tropical and far northern regions, largely fueled by unusually severe droughts, and impacted more rural areas like Nepal, which often receive less global attention. In essence, as Dr. Cunningham simply put it, “They’re everywhere.”
The researchers further investigated the connection between the rise in disastrous wildfires and climate change. They discovered a strong correlation between these fires and “fire weather” – conditions characterized by powerful, dry winds, high temperatures, and prolonged drought. Other studies have already established that fire weather is intensifying due to climate change.
“It’s clear that these events are driven by extreme weather,” Dr. Cunningham emphasized, while also clarifying that climate change is not the sole cause, but rather “it sets the stage” for catastrophic fires. He concluded, “Climate change is creating more opportunities for a catastrophic fire.”
Dr. Harvey summarized the findings as a “pretty strong collection of evidence” highlighting the increasing socioeconomic costs of wildfires and underscoring climate’s significant role. “This really hammers home the fact that things are rapidly changing, and we really need to better understand them to be able to address them,” he said.