Climate change and forest fires: what’s happening worldwide?
Forest blazes are not just happening earlier in the year, they are more intense. Why is climate change is increasing their number?
Media worldwide are turning their attention to forest fires again, a both naturally-occurring and deliberate phenomenon. For years now, they have worried the scientific community due to their increasing frequency and intensity. They are no longer simply a recurring theme in the summer, but with us almost all year round. If 2023 set records for historic fires in Greece and Canada, the current year is no better, affecting countries such as the US, Brazil, Chile and Portugal, and especially Amazonia. In this article, we report on why climate change is accelerating the creation of forest fires and what measures can be taken to avoid them.
What will I learn from this article?
Climate change creates the conditions for more forest fires
Rising global temperature is one of the main drivers of the increase in the frequency and severity of forest fires. According to Yale Climate Connections, climate change is causing drier and hotter conditions, which facilitate the ignition and propagation of the blazes. As temperatures rise, soil humidity falls, creating an ideal environment for the fires.
In this map, elaborated for NASA, known as FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System), we can observe data in real time on fires active across the world. The system allows firefighters, scientists and other users to monitor them and detect trends. It is shocking to discover, from a bird’s eye view, the number of fires ablaze at the same time throughout the world.
Few places seem to be immune: Australia, Indonesia, Canada, the US and north Africa have hit the front pages due to the forest fires they have suffered in recent years. But the region experiencing most is South America with almost half a million forest fires alone recorded in 2024 to date. Regions such as Gran Chaco, the Maracaibo river basin and the northern Amazon are the most affected. Indeed, the latter saw triple the number of days a year - in which climate conditions were extreme and favored fires (high temperatures, drought and low humidity) - according to this study published in Communications Earth and Environment.
Human activity is thought to be behind most fires. In Argentina, the National Fire Management Service (SNMF) reports that, since August 2021, 95% of fires have been caused by people.
But experts point out that climate change more than doubles the probability that there will be fires and also helps their rapid spread. Indeed, a report by the University of California in Berkeley concluded that the fire season in the US West is now 75 days longer than in the 1970s.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change increases the probability of drought, storms and other climate anomalies such as mefgafires. These events, which occur once every 100 years, are suddenly occurring every 10 years. Forecasts by UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme, point to the number of large fires increasing by up to 50% by the year 2100. Climate change does not only generate a favorable environment for forest fires to occur earlier, but also increases their size and frequency.
How forest fires impact nature
Forest fires represent a serious threat to the environment, biodiversity and communities living nearby. They can destroy extensive areas of vegetation, affecting ecosystem services and causing the degradation of natural habitats for many species. In fact, it is estimated that the changes in the occurrence of fires will lead to a massive loss in biodiversity, endangering over 4,400 land-based and freshwater species.
Increasing soil erodibility, due to the loss of plant cover, can affect the quality and quantity of water, causing changes to the land that prevent water being filtered correctly.
The emission of large quantities of smoke and ash also contributes to air pollution, affecting the quality of air and representing risks for human health. Forest fires in Canada in 2023 emitted at least 410 million tons of CO2, more than the annual emissions of a country like Spain (244.3 in 2022).
Preventing, managing and controlling. Measures against forest fires
Community involvement
In Portugal, 75% of the forest surface is on small private properties on average around a hectare large. This fragmentation, combined with the inactivity of the owners, limits the capacity of forest managers to prevent fires.
To solve this, a forest management plan has been launched together with the smallholders to promote sustainable management of woods and protect against extreme fires.
France, for its part, legally obliges owners to clear the forest and undergrowth that surround their properties. The government has created digital maps to indicate to owners if their properties are affected and where the limits of their responsibility are in terms of prevention measures. In Spain, forest brigades are responsible for cleaning hillsides, pruning trees and creating firebreaks, key actions for preventing extreme forest fires and protecting the biodiversity of their ecosystems.
Extensive grazing as an ally
Biomass reduction is crucial in preventing forest fires, since it eliminates the continuity of the combustible material and establishes a vegetational structure and characteristics that improve the capacity to manage fires. For this, many European countries, among them Spain, have resorted to extensive grazing as an option for increasing the countryside’s resistance to fire. But, for extensive grazing to be effective across the countryside, a large number of farmers and shepherds need to be involved and the effort has to be directed strategically.
In Andalusia, in southern Spain, a program has been launched to direct grazing to reduce biomass in specific areas and to maintain the forest structure needed to prevent fires. Farmers are paid under the rubric of environmental services to take their livestock to these areas.
AI to prevent forest fires
In Turkey, some 230,000 km2 of its 783,562 km2 of land mass is covered by forests, most of it in public ownership. Unfortunately, a large part burned in the Mediterranean region in 2021 during the worst period of forest fires in the country’s history.
One of the characteristics of forest fires are their unpredictability. Human activities, the land and weather conditions, all influence the probability of a forest fire occurring. To try to forecast the hotspots and distribute the resources effectively, the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), Koç Digital, TMAF and Deloitte, have launched the FireAid initiative.
FireAid is an interactive map of fire risks developed using AI algorithms. It provides crucial information so that authorities can prepare and respond to fires, and uses simulation tools that process the size of the fire, predict its advance and evaluate the tactics to extinguish it. First experiences of using the map are by all accounts positive. The pilot stage in Turkey returned an 80% reliability in forecasting the moment at which forest fires would ignite.
To summarize, prevention, rapid response and good management will all be key to combating forest fires. As well as controlling illegal logging and promoting sustainable farming and livestock practices, some experts say that time-tested indigenous practices of controlled, low-intensity burning are an efficient strategy for eliminating dry vegetation and other inflammable materials on the ground, thus also helping to prevent forest fires.
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