This is the science of what is coming. Drawing on more than 40 peer-reviewed studies, government climate projections, satellite earth observation data, and forest science institute research, this report documents the projected escalation of wildfire risk country by country and US state by state — from Australia's already-exceeded 2030 fire danger projections to India's 60% increase in severe fire weather days, from a potential tenfold increase in Mediterranean extreme fire events to the 600% burned area increase per degree of warming projected for Western US forests. The science is unambiguous. A ForestSat research initiative.
The following statistics are drawn directly from peer-reviewed research, government climate reports, and international agency assessments. Each figure is sourced. Together they establish the scientific consensus on wildfire risk trajectory under climate change — a trajectory that is upward across all regions, all time horizons, and all emissions scenarios, with magnitude proportional to warming level.
The following projections synthesise the best available science from UNEP (2022), IPCC AR6 (2021), Ruffault et al. Nature Climate Change (2025), El Garroussi et al. npj Climate (2024), Kirchmeier-Young et al. npj Climate (2024), CSIRO/BOM State of Climate (2024), and Chaturvedi et al. Communications Earth & Environment (2023). All figures relative to the 1986–2022 baseline unless stated.
| Horizon | Global Fire Risk Change | Scale (relative) | Key Projections by Region / Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Now 2025 | Already elevated: 2×–3× historical in many regions | US burned area already doubled 1984–2015 (NOAA). Australia FFDI regime shifted ~2000. Fire weather doubled for some US areas (1970s–2020s). Canada 2023 season 7× the 1986–2022 average. | |
| 2030 | +14% global extreme fire incidents | UNEP 2022 projection. Australia 2030 FFDI projections already met/exceeded (MDPI Fire 2024). US extreme risk days up +10 days average (DRI/Argonne 2023). India fire seasons lengthening 3–61 days. | |
| 2050 | +30% global extreme fire incidents | UNEP 2022. Mediterranean burned area +40–100% under 1.5–3°C scenarios (Turco et al. 2018). India severe fire weather days +60% in dry forests (Chaturvedi et al. 2023). Canada burned area may double from historical mean under moderate scenarios. | |
| 2070 | Accelerating: most regions well above current risk | Mediterranean 5–10% annual probability of extreme fire events across most of region (El Garroussi 2024). Australia fire season substantially longer with higher FFDI extremes. Siberian fire frequency 2–3× vs. current (Huang et al. 2024). | |
| 2100 | +50% global; ×10 Mediterranean; ×2–3 Canada | 🔴 UNEP +50% extreme fire globally. El Garroussi: up to ×10 extreme fire probability (Mediterranean). Coogan: Canada annual burned area 10–12 Mha under SSP370/585 (approaching 2023 record level as average). Fire season duration doubles in high-latitude regions (Ruffault 2025). |
Note: All projections are scenario-dependent. Under SSP1-2.6 (warming held near 1.5°C), risk escalation is substantially lower. Under SSP5-8.5 (very high emissions), projections exceed those shown. Sources: UNEP (2022) · Ruffault et al. Nature Climate Change (2025) · El Garroussi et al. npj Climate (2024) · Kirchmeier-Young et al. npj Climate (2024) · Turco et al. Nature Communications (2018) · CSIRO/BOM State of Climate (2024) · Chaturvedi et al. Comms. Earth & Env. (2023) · Coogan et al. Nature Communications (2024) · Huang et al. AGU Advances (2024) · NOAA/C2ES · DRI/Argonne (2023).
The following regional assessments draw on national climate research institutions, peer-reviewed journal publications, and government scientific reports. Each entry cites primary sources. The evidence base for increasing fire risk is strongest in the regions with the most developed research infrastructure — but the scientific signal is consistent globally: warming drives fire risk escalation everywhere it has been modelled.
The following state-by-state assessment draws on Climate Central's 52-year fire weather analysis (1973–2024), NOAA climate projections, state-level fire plans, and peer-reviewed fire-climate research. Each entry includes current trend data and future projections.
Fire risk forecasting uses a suite of scientifically validated indices and observational systems, each capturing different aspects of fire weather, fuel state, and atmospheric conditions. Below are the primary tools used by national fire agencies and climate researchers worldwide.
Every data point and finding cited in this research report draws on at least one of the following sources. Links are provided where available. Sources are listed in approximate order of importance to this report's primary claims.
UNEP (2022). "Spreading Like Wildfire: The Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires." United Nations Environment Programme. unep.org
Ruffault, J. et al. (March 2025). "Wildfire risk for species under climate change." Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-026-02600-5. nature.com
Jolly, W.M. et al. (2015). "Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013." Nature Communications, 6, 7537. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
IPCC AR6 WG1 (2021). Chapter 12: Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and Risk Assessment. ipcc.ch
DRI / Argonne / U. Wisconsin-Madison (Nov 2023). "Climate Change Will Increase Wildfire Risk and Lengthen Fire Seasons." Earth's Future. dri.edu
El Garroussi, S. et al. (2024). "Europe faces up to tenfold increase in extreme fires in a warming climate." npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 7, 30. nature.com
Turco, M. et al. (2018). "Exacerbated fires in Mediterranean Europe due to anthropogenic warming projected with non-stationary climate-fire models." Nature Communications. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Ruffault, J. et al. (2020). "Increased likelihood of heat-induced large wildfires in the Mediterranean Basin." PubMed Central. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
European Environment Agency (EEA). "Forest fires in Europe — Indicators." eea.europa.eu
Carnicer, J. et al. (2022). "Unprecedented change in Europe's fire regime." Study led by Univ. of Barcelona / CREAF. Scientific Reports. preventionweb.net
Bureau of Meteorology & CSIRO (2024). State of the Climate 2024. 8th biennial report. bom.gov.au
CSIRO (ongoing). Climate Projections for Australia — 8-region assessment based on 40 global climate models. csiro.au
Dowdy, A.J. et al. (2019). "Future changes in extreme weather and pyroconvection risk factors for Australian wildfires." Scientific Reports, 9, 10073. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
MDPI Fire (2024). "Comparing Observed and Projected Changes in Australian Fire Climates." DOI: 10.3390/fire7040113. mdpi.com
NOAA. "Wildfire Climate Connection." noaa.gov
Climate Central (May 2023). "Burning Hot: 50 Years of Fire Weather Across the United States." climatecentral.org
C2ES (2026). "Wildfires and Climate Change." Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. c2es.org
Abatzoglou, J.T. & Williams, A.P. (2016). "Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests." PNAS, 113(42). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1607171113
Brey, S.J. et al. (2021). "Past variance and future projections of environmental conditions driving western US wildfire burn area." Earth's Future. PMC: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Ayars, J., Kramer, H.A., Jones, G.M. (2023). "The 2020 to 2021 California megafires and their impacts on wildlife habitat." PNAS, 120(49). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Kirchmeier-Young, M.C. et al. (2024). "Human driven climate change increased the likelihood of the 2023 record area burned in Canada." npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 7, 318. nature.com
Coogan, S.C.P. et al. (2024). "Global climate change below 2°C avoids large end century increases in burned area in Canada." Nature Communications. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Chaturvedi, R.K. et al. (2023). "Climate change strongly affects future fire weather danger in Indian forests." Communications Earth & Environment. DOI: 10.1038/s43247-023-01112-w. nature.com
Forest Survey of India (FSI). India State of Forest Reports 2021–2024. Fire hotspot satellite data (MODIS/SNPP sensors). fsi.nic.in
IndiaSPEND (2025). "Rising Forest Fires Could Hinder India's Green Cover Ambitions." indiaspend.com
Environmental Sciences Europe (2025). "Forest fires and climate change in India: impacts, adaptive strategies, and pathways for climate action." Springeropen. springeropen.com
Huang, Y. et al. (2024). "Escalating Wildfires in Siberia Driven by Climate Feedbacks Under a Warming Arctic in the 21st Century." AGU Advances. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Kharuk, V.I. et al. (2021). "Wildfires in the Siberian Arctic." Fire, 5(4), 106. PMC: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
NASA Earth Observatory (2024). "Fires Char the Siberian Arctic." earthobservatory.nasa.gov
Lovejoy, T. & Nobre, C. (2018). "Amazon tipping point." Science Advances, 4(2). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat2340
Enquist, B.J. et al. (2021). "How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity." Nature. Reported by Mongabay. mongabay.com
Rainforest Foundation US (2025). "2025 Amazon Fires." rainforestfoundation.org
NASA FIRMS. Fire Information for Resource Management System. MODIS + VIIRS active fire detection. firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
Copernicus CAMS / ECMWF. Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS), fire danger forecasts, annual fire emission reports. atmosphere.copernicus.eu
EFFIS / European Commission JRC. European Forest Fire Information System. effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Van der Werf, G.R. et al. (2017). GFED4 — Global Fire Emissions Database, 1997–present. Earth System Science Data, 9, 697–720. globalfiredata.org
World Weather Attribution. Climate attribution studies for specific fire events. worldweatherattribution.org
The scientific evidence is unambiguous and the economic case is overwhelming: the global strategy of fighting wildfires after they start is failing — and will continue to fail with increasing cost and decreasing effectiveness as climate change intensifies fire conditions. Every credible fire science institution, from UNEP to the USFS, from CSIRO to the European Environment Agency, reaches the same conclusion: prevention is not merely better than suppression — it is the only viable long-term strategy. The alternative is a future in which fire agencies consume entire national discretionary budgets fighting fires they cannot stop, in landscapes they failed to manage, protecting communities that should never have been built where they were.
The United States federal wildland fire budget has escalated from under $2 billion in FY1994 to a requested $6.55 billion for FY2026 — a 245% increase in a single year, directly triggered by the January 2025 Los Angeles fires. Despite this escalating spend, fires are getting larger, deadlier, and more destructive every year. The USFS spent $3.11 billion on suppression in FY2022. In 2021, the single Dixie Fire alone cost $637.4 million to fight — more than entire national fire seasons a decade prior.
The fundamental problem is structural: 1–2% of fires consume more than 30% of the total suppression budget. These megafires — the ones that make global headlines — are driven by weather so extreme that no amount of firefighting equipment can stop them. They stop when the atmosphere changes. Every dollar spent fighting them is largely reactive expenditure against a meteorological force that cannot be beaten in the field.
Portugal's experience is the starkest indictment of the suppression-first paradigm. Between 2000 and 2017, Portugal spent €6.585 billion on firefighting and only €410 million on prevention — a 16:1 ratio. The result: 117 deaths in 2017, the deadliest wildfire year in European history. The independent technical commission established after the Pedrógão Grande disaster concluded that structural prevention failures — not suppression failures — caused most deaths.
Australia's Black Summer (2019–20) cost AUD $2.2 billion in recovery funding — after the fires burned 24.3 million hectares and 3 billion animals. The National Bushfire Royal Commission's key finding: the risk was foreseeable, the fuels were manageable, and the investment in prevention was chronically inadequate.
| Benefit Category | Direct Benefit | Indirect / Long-Term Benefit | Evidence / Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel Reduction (Prescribed Burn / Thinning) |
Reduces fire intensity in treated zones by 60–80%; slows spread rate; lowers flame lengths; increases fireground safety; reduces suppressant use | Restores fire-adapted ecosystem structure; increases biodiversity; enhances watershed function; improves wildlife habitat; reduces future suppression need | USFS research; American Forests; Cochrane & Laurance (2008); Prescribed Fire Council |
| Early Detection & Rapid Initial Attack |
Increases containment rate of fires at <10 acres from 82% to 95%+; dramatically reduces probability of escape to megafire; reduces average suppression cost by 80–90% per event | Prevents smoke events; protects air quality; reduces evacuation trauma; preserves community relationships to landscape; prevents PTSD and mental health crisis in communities | NIFC initial attack data; USFS dispatch analysis; WFCA; ALERTCalifornia detection-to-dispatch studies |
| Reforestation & Ecological Restoration |
Replaces fire-promoting monocultures (eucalyptus, pine plantation) with diverse native forest; rebuilds carbon sinks; restores watershed hydrology; reduces post-fire erosion and flood risk | Long-term carbon sequestration (forests absorb 30% of human CO₂ emissions annually); biodiversity recovery; reduced downstream flood and drinking water costs; landscape-scale fire resistance | IPCC IPBES reports; WWF reforestation science; UNFCCC land use reporting; Portugal & Australia post-fire restoration studies |
| WUI Hardening & Community Planning |
Ember-resistant vents, non-combustible roofing, defensible space zones reduce structure ignition rates by 50–90% in wildfire; reduces evacuation frequency and emergency management costs; lowers insurance claims | Preserves housing stock; maintains community tax base; reduces displacement trauma; lowers municipal debt from recovery; reduces insurance market withdrawal (a growing crisis in CA, FL, TX) | IBHS research; USFS WUI studies; Insurance Information Institute; California FAIR Plan data; Moody's RMS |
| Proactive Fuel Mapping & Risk Intelligence |
Identifies highest-risk landscapes before fires start; allows targeted fuel treatment; prioritises limited prevention budgets for maximum impact; enables pre-positioning of suppression resources in high-risk areas | Transforms reactive emergency management into evidence-based landscape stewardship; enables multi-year prevention programmes; builds institutional knowledge of local fire risk; shifts political narrative from disaster to preparedness | USFS national fuel inventory; NASA FIRMS historical analysis; Copernicus CAMS trend data; ForestSat DSS framework |
| Carbon & Climate Benefits | Prevented megafire avoids 100–300 tonnes CO₂/ha vs. 10–20 t/ha for managed burn; protects long-lived carbon stocks in old-growth; avoids smoke PM2.5 health costs ($82,100 premature deaths from 2023 Canada fires alone) | Contributes to national NDCs under Paris Agreement; eligible for carbon credits and payments for ecosystem services; reduces global feedback loop of fire→warming→fire; protects forests' role in planetary water cycle regulation | CAMS/ECMWF emissions data; Zhang et al. Nature (2025); IPCC land use reporting; UNFCCC carbon accounting frameworks |
The economic case for space-based fire risk intelligence is straightforward. The 2021 Dixie Fire cost $637.4 million to suppress. The LiDAR fuel survey, satellite vegetation monitoring, and AI risk modelling that would have identified the dangerous fuel accumulation in its catchment area in the years before ignition costs in the range of tens of thousands of dollars annually. The prescribed burn treatment that would have reduced fire intensity — and potentially kept the fire in the initial attack phase — costs hundreds of dollars per acre for a few thousand acres of critical fuel break.
The January 2025 Los Angeles fires ($40 billion in insured losses) burned through a landscape that had been mapped, modelled, and warned about for years. The fuel loads were known. The ignition risk was known. The wind forecast was known. What was missing was an integrated prevention DSS that could translate risk intelligence into pre-authorised fuel treatment, community hardening, and pre-positioned suppression resources — reducing the probability that an ignition became a catastrophe.
The 2022 UNEP report called for a fundamental shift in government investment — away from the current 90%+ allocated to reactive suppression, toward prevention, preparation, and ecological management. Portugal's 17-year ratio was €16 suppression for every €1 of prevention — and produced 117 deaths in a single season. Research consistently shows prevention returns 6–12× its cost in avoided suppression spending. (UNEP 2022; Safe Communities Portugal; The Lookout 2023)
The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming produces dramatically different fire risk outcomes. Turco et al. (2018) found Mediterranean burned area doubles from 40% to ~100% increase as warming rises from 1.5°C to 3°C. Coogan et al. (2024) found Canada's annual burned area remains near current norms under SSP126 (below 2°C) but approaches the record 2023 levels as an average future season under high emissions. Every half-degree matters. (Kirchmeier-Young 2024; Coogan 2024; Turco 2018)
The US Forest Service's historic "10 AM Policy" — suppressing every fire by 10 AM the following day — created the current fuel crisis by preventing the low-intensity fires that maintained forest structure for millennia. Under climate-driven megafire conditions, this strategy both fails ecologically and bankrupts fire budgets. The new paradigm — prescribed fire, managed wildfire, WUI hardening, and community resilience — is scientifically supported. (USFS; Pyne, cited in Slate 2021)