Severe fires lead to higher carbon dioxide fire emissions

Rampant wildfires in the Americas led to an increase in global greenhouse gas emissions from fires during the year through February, a new study showed Thursday, warning that climate change is fanning the flames.

Fires that have destroyed vast swaths of boreal forests in Canada and swept through dry forests and vulnerable wetlands in South America have led to global CO2 fires.₂ The State of Bushfires report found emissions are 10% higher than the 20-year average.

This comes despite the fact that the total areas burned around the world are below average, the international team of researchers said.

The report found that heat, drought and human activities helped intensify fires in forests and carbon-rich ecosystems.

“It’s the scale and frequency of these extreme events that I find most surprising,” said co-author Matthew Jones of the University of East Anglia in eastern England.

He said satellite monitoring showed that fires were becoming more intense around the world, expanding into key ecosystems and burning more material than in the past.

“During these extreme wildfire years, we see more fires, bigger fires, hotter fires, faster fires, and all of these properties pretty much come together and have devastating impacts on people and nature,” Jones told AFP.

Climate change is one of the main factors helping to create the ideal hot, dry conditions for fires to spread and burn.

The report, which looked at severe wildfires from March 2024 to February 2025, found that devastating fires in Los Angeles and parts of South America were two to three times more likely to be caused by climate change.

Higher temperatures also increased the area burned during those events by 25 to 35 times, the researchers said.

Global temperatures in 2024 were the hottest on record, exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial period for the first time.

Fires burned down millions of hectares of forest and farmland last year in Canada, the western parts of the United States and the Amazon, as well as in the Pantanal region, the world’s largest tropical wetland, which is shared by Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.

Worldwide, the authors said, wildfires killed 100 people in Nepal, 34 in South Africa, and 31 in Los Angeles during the reporting period, with smoke drifting across continents and causing dangerous levels of air pollution off the heat of the fires.

Globally, the report said that the fires caused the emission of more than eight billion tons of carbon dioxide₂ In 2024-2025 – about 10% higher than the average since 2003.

This comes after the World Meteorological Organization warned on Wednesday that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year was the largest ever.

The World Meteorological Organization expressed “great concern” that the land and oceans are no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide₂which leaves greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

She warned that the planet could see a so-called “vicious cycle” of climate feedback – where increased greenhouse gas emissions lead to higher temperatures that help fuel wildfires that release more carbon dioxide.₂While warmer oceans cannot absorb as much carbon dioxide₂ From the air.

© 2025 Agence France-Presse