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Hurricane-force winds whipped fires across drought-parched grasslands and into suburban neighborhoods near Denver. On December 30, 2021, high winds roared out of the west and down the front slope of the Rocky Mountains. Northwest of Denver, peak gusts reached up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hou...

Wildfires and prescribed burns potentially stabilize soil organic matter, offsetting initial carbon emissions by altering soil properties such as porosity, hydrophobicity, and microbial composition, which reduce organic matter decomposition. Wildfires and prescribed burns, which can promote soil org...

The report, Spreading like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires, finds an elevated risk even for the Arctic and other regions previously unaffected by wildfires. Even the Arctic, previously all but immune, faces rising wildfire risk, experts say ahead of the UN Environment As...

Firefighters contended with strong winds and dry weather as blazes raced through coastal counties. Amid dry weather and strong winds, thousands of firefighters raced to put out fires that burned through forests in coastal South Korea in early March 2022. In NASA satellite data, the first signs of th...

New analysis confirms a palpable change in fire dynamics already suspected by many. Fires have gotten larger, more frequent, and more widespread across the United States since 2000, according to a new CIRES Earth Lab-led paper. Recent wildfires have stoked concern that climate change is causing more...

Increase in August Pollution Could Have Far-Reaching Health Implications New research finds that increasingly large and intense wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are altering the seasonal pattern of air pollution and causing a spike in unhealthy pollutants in the month of August. According to the s...

TFires surged in Madagascar’s protected areas during the pandemic lockdowns due to the absence of on-site management. he number of fires inside protected conservation areas across the island of Madagascar shot up dramatically when COVID-19 lockdowns led to the suspension of any on-site management fo...

In early July 2022, a combination of dry weather, lightning, and unusual heat fueled hundreds of wildland fires in northern Canada. 136 fires were burning in The Yukon and 65 in the Northwest Territories on July 6, according to the Canadian government. The image above was captured on July 6, 2022, b...

Satellite images show smoke from hundreds of wildland fires darkening Alaskan skies. Alaskan summers are usually described as brief and mild. In the early summer of 2022, the word that stood out as most descriptive was “smoky.” In a smoldering scene that was repeated several times in Jun...

In summer 2022, multiple heatwaves around the world shattered temperature records and fueled wildfires. Heatwaves struck Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, in June and July 2022 as temperatures climbed above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in places and broke many long-stan...

After a wildfire broke out on the morning of July 23, hundreds of residents and tourists have been evacuated from the east Aegean island of Lesbos (also known as Lesvos), Greece. The fire has been raging near the coastal area of Vatera, a popular tourist destination. It has already burned pine fores...

Human-ignited fires drive most PM2.5-related premature deaths in the U.S. Over 80% of premature deaths caused by small smoke particles in the United States result directly from human-ignited fires. This is the outcome of a study published today (January 16, 2023) in IOP Publishing’s journal Environm...

Hot, Dry Winds Fanned the Flames of Widespread Fires in Chile Stoked by a summer heat wave and strong winds, widespread fires have been raging through south-central Chile since February 2, 2023. Over the course of several days, the deadly fires have destroyed more than 1,000 homes and have spread ac...

Although the outbreak of fires in early February 2023 has subsided, the burned area remained visible from space. Wildland fires raged across central and southern Chile in early February 2023. The blazes killed dozens, injured thousands, and left many people homeless. The smoke that previously poured...

Are wildfires getting worse? Yes, unfortunately, they are. We’re seeing increases in the intensity and the severity, the overall burned area of wildfires and the duration of fire across the fire season. And while fire is a natural part of ecosystems, what’s really driving this change is ...

A study led by UC Irvine found that forest fires in northern latitudes are the primary source. An international team of researchers, led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine, has reported that carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires have experienced a sharp increase to ...

Wet weather set the stage for prescribed burning to ramp up through April 2023 in the state’s southwest, near Perth. In April 2023, increased rainfall enabled prescribed burning in southwest Australia to mitigate bushfire risks and maintain biodiversity. However, wind-carried smoke can lead to reduc...

Smoke originating from Canadian wildfires caused historically poor air quality. The northeastern U.S. experienced another day with some of the worst air quality recorded in the region, caused by particularly severe wildfire activity in Canada. On June 8, 2023, the province of Quebec reported 136 act...

Controlled fires in key areas could drastically reduce smoke exposure throughout the entire western U.S. Wildfire smoke is a threat to air quality, public health, and ecosystems throughout the U.S. Notwithstanding the impact of this year’s Canadian wildfires, the West typically sees much higher expo...

As Canada’s wildfires continue to be felt downwind, MIT experts weigh in on what to expect in the coming months, with wildfire season underway. Where there’s smoke, there is fire. But with climate change, larger and longer-burning wildfires are sending smoke farther from their source, often to place...

Wildfires broke out on Rhodes and other islands amid record heat, forcing thousands to evacuate. A prolonged heatwave in Greece led to widespread wildfires in July 2023, causing mass evacuations. NASA-affiliated scientists tracked the situation using satellite imagery, and the organization’s E...

Researchers previously thought that a waxy layer in scorched soil led to water runoff on the ground. However, recent discoveries indicate that burnt terrain can indeed absorb water. These insights can aid in making more precise predictions about flooding and mudslides following a fire. In 2020, the ...

Devastating wildfires in multiple countries have prompted ESA’s reopening of the World Fire Atlas, providing detailed insights and tools to monitor and manage fires globally, with Canada facing its worst wildfire season on record. In recent weeks, devastating wildfires have spread in Greece, I...

Wildfires in the country’s northeast sent smoke streaming over Mediterranean waters. A month after devastating fires tore across parts of Greece in July 2023, dozens more fires ignited across the country in late August 2023. A particularly large fire erupted in the country’s northeast, close to Alex...

A month after fires devastated the island of Rhodes in July 2023 (see image below), more fires have ripped through Greece this week as southern Europe swelters under a late summer heatwave. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows the ongoing blaze near Alexandroupoli in the Evros region of northeast ...

Lightning is the dominant cause of wildfire ignition in boreal forests – areas of global importance for carbon storage – and will increase in frequency with climate change, according to new research. Dr. Matthew Jones of the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Researc...