Outcome progress
Has the situation improved in the real world?
Low2024 was the most extreme year for forest fires since records began in 2001 and 2025 ranked third, with fires now causing a far larger share of tree cover loss than two decades ago.
EnvironmentUN Goal 13: Climate Action
Living with Extreme Wildfires
Fire is a natural part of many landscapes, but extreme wildfires are becoming more frequent and destructive, now cause about four in ten hectares of the world's tree cover loss and fill the air with smoke linked to an estimated 1.5 million premature deaths a year, while prevention and community fire management remain underfunded.
Updated 9 min read4 sources
Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Take a guess first
Smoke from burning vegetation carries fine particles that damage the heart and lungs. Roughly how many premature deaths a year are estimated to result from it worldwide?
About 1.5 million
Premature deaths a year linked to fire smoke
Modelled estimate of deaths from fine particle pollution caused by fires, averaged over the years since 1990, from studies cited in the State of Wildfires 2024–2025 report.
Data year 2025. Source: Earth System Science Data, 17, 5377–5488, 2025
42%
Share of global tree cover loss caused by fire
Of the 25.5 million hectares of tree cover lost worldwide in 2025, according to Global Forest Watch satellite data published by WRI. Canada alone had 5.3 million hectares burned in its second-worst fire year on record.
Data year 2025. Source: World Resources Institute, 2026
3.7 million km²
Land burned in one fire season
At least this much land burned worldwide between March 2024 and February 2025, 9% below the 2002–2024 average, while carbon emissions from fires were 9% above average at 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon.
Data year 2024. Source: Earth System Science Data, 17, 5377–5488, 2025
The numbers
Unit: % of tree cover loss per year
Two period averages from Global Forest Watch data, as reported by WRI and plotted at the end year of each period: about 27% a year on average in 2001–2022 and about 43% a year in 2023–2025. Single years vary widely, and 2024 was the worst year for forest fires in the record. Satellite estimates of the cause of loss are modelled and carry uncertainty.
No global wildfire target
There is no quantified international target for wildfires; they fall under the broad SDG 13 aim of strengthening resilience to climate-related hazards. The State of Wildfires 2025–26 projections show why climate policy matters: under a medium-high emissions pathway (SSP3-7.0), extreme fire events in its focal regions would burn 4–23% less than under the highest pathway, and meeting the Paris Agreement goals (SSP1-2.6) would cut the area burned in such events by a further 5–36%. These are model projections from a report still under peer review.
Who is affected most
Smoke harms older people, young children, people with illness and Traditional communities most, often where public services and means of protection are poor. In 2024–2025, communities in Brazil, Bolivia, Southern California and northern India were exposed to fine particles at 13 to 60 times WHO's daily guideline.
Source: Earth System Science Data, 17, 5377–5488, 2025Fires in 2024–2025 killed 100 people in Nepal, 34 in South Africa and 31 in Los Angeles. Since 1990, wildfire disasters have killed or injured at least about 18,000 people, a count the State of Wildfires authors call conservative because records are incomplete and biased towards northern countries.
Source: Earth System Science Data, 17, 5377–5488, 2025In early 2026, fires in Chile and northwest Argentina killed 23 people and displaced 55,000. In Europe's 2025 season, fires killed 35 people across six countries and forced more than 110,000 evacuations in Türkiye, Spain and Greece.
Source: Earth System Science Data Discussions, 2026More than 60% of fire-related tree cover loss between 2001 and 2025 was in boreal forests, which store 30–40% of the carbon held on land. In 2023, record fires burned almost 7.8 million hectares of forest in Canada.
Source: World Resources Institute, 2026
Are we making progress?
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Solution maturity
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateFire danger forecasts, fuel reduction, controlled burning, suppression and integrated fire management are established, but the largest fires are increasingly hard to control and safe windows for controlled burning are shrinking as fire seasons lengthen.
Implementation reach
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
LowWRI describes prevention as among the most cost-effective tools but underfunded in many countries, with communities often lacking equipment to respond and Indigenous Peoples often excluded from fire management decisions.
Confidence in the data
ModerateSatellite records of burned area and tree cover loss are consistent since the early 2000s, though they miss small fires. Records of deaths and losses are incomplete and biased towards northern countries, and smoke deaths are modelled estimates.
Current trajectory
WorseningTotal burned area is not rising globally, but forest fires are: fires burn more than twice as much tree cover a year as two decades ago and caused about 43% of tree cover loss in 2023–2025, up from about 27% in 2001–2022.
Why this matters
Many ecosystems, from African savannas to boreal forests, have burned for millennia, and tropical savannas account for around 70% of the land that burns each year. The problem is the growing number of extreme fires: blazes that spread too fast or burn too intensely to control, destroy homes and forests, and blanket whole regions in smoke. The total area burned worldwide has not risen; in the 2024–2025 fire season it was 9% below the long-term average. But carbon emissions from fires were 9% above average, because more of the burning hit forests. Forest fires now burn more than twice as much tree cover each year as they did two decades ago, 2024 was the worst year for forest fires since records began in 2001, and fires caused 42% of the world's tree cover loss in 2025. Climate change is a major driver: it made the fire weather behind recent disasters in northeast Amazonia, the Congo Basin, Canada and northwest Iberia between about two and 70 times more likely.
The harm reaches far beyond the fire line. Smoke carries fine particles linked to an estimated 1.5 million premature deaths a year, and in 2024–2025 communities in Brazil, Bolivia, Southern California and northern India breathed particle levels 13 to 60 times above the World Health Organization's daily guideline. Older people, young children, people with chronic illness and Traditional and Indigenous communities with few public services are hit hardest. Fires also kill directly, force mass evacuations and destroy livelihoods: the Los Angeles fires of early 2025 alone caused 31 deaths, about 150,000 evacuations and an estimated USD 140 billion in damage. In the tropics almost all fires are started by people, often to clear land, and in a warmer, drier climate these fires escape more easily into forests, releasing carbon that drives further warming.
How wildfires and their impacts are measured
No single number captures the wildfire problem. Scientists combine satellite observations with reports from fire agencies and other records:
Burned area
Satellites detect burn scars and add up the land burned in each fire season. These maps are the backbone of global statistics but miss many small fires, so totals are underestimates. Most of the area burned each year is savanna and grassland, where fire is often part of the ecosystem or of farming.
Fire carbon emissions
Emissions are estimated from how much vegetation burns. Because burning forests releases much more carbon per hectare than burning grassland, emissions can be above average even in a year when less land burns, as happened in 2024–2025.
Tree cover loss from fire
Global Forest Watch maps tree cover lost each year from satellite images and assigns a dominant cause, such as agriculture or fire. This shows where fire is destroying forests rather than renewing grasslands.
Human impacts and smoke
Deaths, evacuations and economic losses are gathered from national records, agency and disaster reports and the news, and are incomplete, especially outside richer northern countries. Smoke exposure is tracked as days on which fine particle pollution exceeds WHO's 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³, and smoke deaths are modelled estimates.
What already works, and its limits
Fire danger forecasts and early warning
What works
Weather services now forecast fire danger from days up to about four months ahead, and the Copernicus Emergency Management Service publishes seasonal fire weather outlooks. Forecasts help agencies position crews, issue warnings, restrict burning and prepare evacuations before conditions peak.
Limits
A forecast only helps if it triggers action on the ground and warnings reach remote and rural communities. Its effect on deaths and damage has rarely been measured.
Reducing fuels and controlled burning
What works
Land managers thin vegetation and use low-intensity controlled burns to remove the fuel that feeds intense fires, especially near settlements. Indigenous Peoples and local communities have used such burning for centuries to keep landscapes resilient.
Limits
Longer and hotter fire seasons are shrinking the weather windows in which controlled burning is safe, treatments must be repeated, and they do not stop fires driven by extreme wind and drought.
Ending forest clearing and careless burning
What works
Almost all fires in the tropics are started by people, often to clear land or manage pasture. Ending deforestation and degradation makes forests more resilient, and limiting burning near forests, especially in droughts, prevents fires from escaping into them.
Limits
Many farmers depend on fire as the cheapest way to clear land, enforcement in remote frontier areas is weak, and deforestation pressures are driven by distant markets.
Community and Indigenous fire management
What works
Local fire brigades and communities who know the land can prevent and catch fires early. WRI recommends securing land rights and giving dedicated funding and equipment to local brigades so that Indigenous Peoples and local communities can lead fire management where they live.
Limits
These groups are often excluded from fire management decisions, and many communities still lack the equipment and resources to respond quickly.
Firefighting and suppression
What works
Fire agencies are expanding or reallocating resources to put out fires quickly, which protects lives, homes and infrastructure when fires do start.
Limits
Suppression is costly, and the largest, fastest fires are increasingly hard to control however many resources are deployed.
Innovations to watch
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Early deployment
Near-real-time attribution of fire extremes
The State of Wildfires project now reports each year how much climate change and land use contributed to the worst fires, and publishes 17 new or updated datasets with its 2025–26 report. It aims to monitor extreme fire seasons as they unfold. The findings inform policy but do not themselves reduce risk.
Early deployment
Machine-learning fire probability forecasts
Data-driven fire models such as the Probability of Fire model are now used to explain what drove extreme fire seasons, alongside fire weather forecasts from days to months ahead. Turning them into routine, local warnings for land managers and communities is still being developed.
Pilots
Wildfire resilience finance
Mechanisms such as the Forest Resilience Bond and watershed resilience funds give upfront money for controlled burning, restoration and other risk reduction before fires start, repaid by those who benefit, such as utilities or water users. Few such schemes exist so far, and their long-term results are not yet known.
What is holding progress back
- Implementation gap:
- Solutions work but reach too few people. Needs infrastructure, funding and organisation.
- Coordination gap:
- Actors are not aligned. Needs standards, partnerships and better incentives.
- Knowledge gap:
- Cause or mechanism not understood. Needs basic research.
- Technology gap:
- Principle known, not yet workable in practice. Needs applied research.
Implementation gap
Prevention gets too little money
Prevention and preparedness are among the most cost-effective tools but are underfunded in many countries, while spending flows to fighting fires once they have started.
Coordination gap
Communities left out and under-equipped
Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who often hold long experience of managing fire, are frequently excluded from decisions, and many communities lack the equipment to respond quickly when fires start.
Coordination gap
Fire tied to land use and markets
In the tropics most fires are lit by people, often for pasture and land clearing. Reducing them depends on agriculture, land rights, trade and law enforcement, not on fire agencies alone.
Knowledge gap
Incomplete records of harm
The global count of at least about 18,000 people killed or injured by wildfire disasters since 1990 is a conservative figure from incomplete records biased towards northern countries, so the toll in Africa, Asia and Latin America is poorly known.
Technology gap
Satellites miss small fires
Global satellite maps underestimate burned area because many small fires go undetected, and Earth observation does not capture all fires that harm people.
Technology gap
Fires beyond control
Larger, faster fires are harder to suppress, and longer fire seasons shrink the windows for safe controlled burning, so the tools that worked in the past are losing ground as the climate warms.
Questions nobody has answered yet
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Which prevention measures work best
How much do fuel reduction, controlled burning, burning restrictions and community brigades actually reduce deaths, damage and forest loss in different ecosystems, and at what cost compared with suppression?
The full health toll of smoke
How large are the long-term effects of repeated smoke exposure on children, older people and people with chronic disease, and which protective measures, such as clean-air shelters or filters, reduce harm most in low-income settings?
Fire and the forest carbon sink
Are more frequent boreal and tropical forest fires pushing these forests towards releasing more carbon than they absorb, and how strongly does this feed back on climate change?
Counting impacts fairly
How can deaths, displacement and losses from fires be recorded consistently in countries where they are currently missed, so that global estimates are not biased towards richer northern countries?
What you can do
Prepare for fire and smoke
If you live in a fire-prone area, follow local fire danger warnings, know your evacuation routes and keep the area around your home clear of dry vegetation and debris. On smoky days, stay indoors with windows closed and check on older neighbours and people with heart or lung disease.
Never let a fire escape
Respect burn bans, do not burn waste or garden material in dry or windy weather, and put out campfires and cigarettes completely. Most fires are started by people.
Support community fire management
Donate to or volunteer with organisations that train and equip local fire brigades or support Indigenous and community-led land management, and choose products that are certified free of deforestation where you can.
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Connected challenges
- Limiting Global WarmingClimate change made the fire weather behind the 2024–2025 extremes 30–70 times more likely in northeast Amazonia and 3–8 times more likely in the Congo Basin.
- Clean Air to BreatheFine particle pollution from fires is estimated to cause on the order of 1.5 million premature deaths a year.
- Stopping DeforestationAlmost all tropical fires are started by people, often to clear land, and in 2024 fire caused 48% of tree cover loss in tropical primary forests.
- Safe from Extreme HeatHeatwaves dry out vegetation and are already five times more likely than 150 years ago, according to WRI, raising the risk of extreme fires.
- Safe from DisastersThe Eaton and Palisades fires around Los Angeles in the 2024–2025 season caused about 150,000 evacuations and an estimated USD 140 billion in damage.
- Protecting PollinatorsHot spells, droughts and wildfires are damaging butterfly habitat in southern Europe.
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Sources
- [1]State of Wildfires 2024–2025
Earth System Science Data, 17, 5377–5488 (Jones, Kelley, Burton, Di Giuseppe et al., 16 October 2025), published 2025
Peer-reviewed annual global assessment of fire activity, its causes and impacts. Source of the 2024–2025 burned area and emissions, deaths, evacuations and losses, smoke exposure, attribution to climate change, the estimate of about 1.5 million premature deaths a year from fire smoke, savanna share of burned area, and limits of impact records.
- [2]State of Wildfires 2025–2026 (preprint)
Earth System Science Data Discussions (Burton, Di Giuseppe, Jones, Kelley et al., 3 August 2026), published 2026
Latest edition of the annual report, covering March 2025 to February 2026; still under peer review in October 2026. Source of the 2025–2026 global and regional figures (Canada, Europe, Chile and Argentina), the WHO smoke guideline used, the projections under different emissions pathways and the 17 new datasets.
- [3]The Latest Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse
World Resources Institute (MacCarthy, Richter, Tyukavina, Potapov, Harris; updated 4 August 2026), published 2026
WRI analysis of Global Forest Watch data on fire-driven tree cover loss for 2001–2025. Source of the doubling of forest area burned, fire's share of tree cover loss, the boreal and tropical patterns, record years, human ignition in the tropics, and WRI's recommendations on prevention, community fire management and finance.
- [4]Tropical Rainforest Loss Drops 36% in 2025, but Fires Threaten Global Progress
World Resources Institute (press release, 29 April 2026), published 2026
Release of Global Forest Watch tree cover loss data for 2025. Source of the 25.5 million hectares of global tree cover loss, the 42% caused by fire, and the 5.3 million hectares burned in Canada.
Cite this page
DO GOOD International (2026). Living with Extreme Wildfires. Global Challenges. Updated October 15, 2026. https://www.dogood.world/challenges/wildfires
For figures, please cite the original sources listed above.