In January, firefighters spent nearly a month battling more than a dozen wildfires across Los Angeles. Despite their best efforts, the two largest—the Eaton and Palisades fires—now rank as the second- and third-most destructive in California history, together burning 38,000 acres, torching 16,000 structures, and killing 31 people.
A large part of what makes this story so devastating is that it isn’t unique. All across the world—from Chile to Canada, Greece, Australia, Portugal, Algeria, and the U.S.—highly destructive, unruly disasters like the Palisades and Eaton fires are becoming the status quo. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science reveals the extent of this global surge, finding that areas of high wildfire risk close to human populations cover 10% of Earth’s landmass.
“The rise in wildfire disasters isn’t just a perception, it’s reality,” said co-author Crystal Kolden, associate professor and director of the Fire Resilience Center at the University of California, Merced, in a university release. “For decades, wildfires primarily impacted largely unpopulated areas, but contemporary catastrophic fires are killing more people and destroying more homes and infrastructure.”
The rising global cost of wildfire
The researchers analyzed global wildfire disaster records from 1980 to 2023 using data from global re-insurer Munich Re’s private database and a public international disaster database. They specifically looked at events that killed 10 or more people or ranked among the 200 most economically damaging.
Of those 200 most costly fires, 43% occurred within the past 10 years. This reflects a fourfold increase in economic wildfire disasters and a threefold increase in wildfires responsible for 10 or more deaths since 1980.
The surge of devastation has unfolded against a backdrop of skyrocketing firefighting investment. In the U.S., federal fire suppression spending nearly quadrupled to $4.4 billion by 2021, yet disasters like the LA fires, the Lahaina fire, and the Durkee fire have become increasingly common.
The team also developed a model that looked beyond the study period to identify areas of high wildfire risk close to human communities. This revealed the deadly risk to 10% of Earth’s land area, and allowed the researchers to successfully forecast major disasters such as the LA fires and Chile’s deadly Las Tablas fire in 2024.
“This provides a roadmap for where the next catastrophic disasters are most likely to occur,” said co-author David Bowman, professor and director of the Fire Center at the University of Tasmania, in the release. “But climate change has fundamentally altered the game. We need to adapt to how we live with fire, not just fight it.”
Climate change drives “hellacious” fire weather
The researchers found that extreme “disaster weather” conditions have become far more common, with severe fire weather and atmospheric drying more than doubling since 1980. Meanwhile, severe droughts have more than tripled. Half of all the disasters they analyzed struck during the most wildfire-conducive conditions on record.
“A majority of global fire disasters occurred with hellacious fire weather that overwhelmed fire suppression efforts,” said co-author John Abatzoglou, a professor and climatologist at UC Merced, in the release. “Moreover, such extreme fire weather conditions are becoming more likely, increasing the odds of disastrous fires,” he added. “While we have seen this play out in catastrophic fires in California, the same factors have played out across the globe.”
“It is unambiguous and it is clear climate change is playing a role,” lead author Calum Cunningham, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire center, told The Guardian. “These aren’t just bigger fires, they’re fires occurring under increasingly extreme weather conditions that make them unstoppable.”
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