State of Wildfires
Wildfire Impacts
During the 2024-2025 fire season, 8 billion tonnes of CO₂ were emitted by fires, an increase of +10% above the average since 2003. Globally, more than 100 million people were exposed to wildfire, with over 200 direct fatalities. In Los Angeles, more than 150,000 people were evacuated during wildfires, with over 400 excess deaths due to e.g. smoke exposure.
Data source: The State of Wildfires project has provided data that shows how global warming is making extreme wildfires both more likely and more severe. The State of Wildfires project is a global collaboration of fire experts, jointly led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), the UK Met Office, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), for monitoring, explaining, and predicting extreme wildfire events.
The annually updated report examines extreme wildfire events from the wildfire season of the previous year (2024-2025), and examines the drivers and predictability of those wildfires. The next update is planned for September 2026.
Above, the maps indicate the size of different wildfire metrics (e.g. burned area, fire count, fire size, and rate of growth) relative to observations since 2002, in relative terms (% change from average).
National wildfire emissions
During the last fire season, the largest burned area anomalies were in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Venezuela, Niger, and Burkina Faso.
While the largest relative burned area anomalies (%) occurred in Iceland, North Macedonia, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, Niger, and Egypt, some of these anomalies result from a relatively low typical levels of burned area and are not as significant in terms of the actual area burned (km2).
The largest fire emissions anomalies were in Iceland, Bolivia, Canada, Lebanon, and Nepal. Some countries, e.g. Iceland, show very large burned area relative anomalies due to the small size of long-term average burned area.
Below, the chart outlines how wildfire metrics vary through time since 2002. Wildfire CO₂ emissions (megatonnes) were highest in Brazil, Canada, DR Congo, Russia, and Angola, while burned area (km2) was greatest in Australia, Angola, Brazil, DR Congo, and South Sudan.
How to explore the data
Select the variable you wish to display (e.g. burned area, CO2 emissions, size, and growth rate) and the geographic layer (e.g. countries, states and provinces). You can pan and zoom the map, as well as hover over a region to reveal the metric value in the top right corner. Within the table, you can add or remove regions using the select box. There are buttons to reset the display, save the map/table image, or to click for more information and to access original data or publication.
Recommended attribution
Data from State of Wildfires project via the UEA Climate Data Dashboard, or State-of-Wildfires/UEA-CDD.
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