'Bigger, hotter, faster': Extreme blazes drive rise in CO₂ fire emissions

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https://phys.org/news/2025-10-bigger-hotter-faster-extreme-blazes.html

October 18, 2025

Rampant wildfires in the Americas drove a jump in global greenhouse gas emissions from fires in the year to February, new research found Thursday, warning that climate change was fanning the flames.
Infernos that ravaged huge areas of Canada's boreal forest and swept through the dry forests and vulnerable wetlands in South America drove global fire CO2 emissions 10% above the 20-year average, the State of Wildfires report found.
That is despite a below-average total of areas burned across the world, the international team of researchers said.
The report found that heat, drought and human activities helped intensify blazes in particularly carbon-rich forests and ecosystems.

"It's the scale and frequency of these extreme events that I find most staggering," said co-author Matthew Jones, of the University of East Anglia in eastern England.
He said satellite monitoring has shown that fires are becoming more intense across the world, expanding in key ecosystems and burning more material than in the past.
"During these extreme wildfire years, we see more fires, bigger fires, hotter fires and faster fires and these properties all aggregate up to extreme extent and destructive impacts on people and nature," Jones told AFP.

Climate change is one key factor, helping to create the optimal hot, dry conditions for fire to spread and burn.