Global Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard
Wildfire
Wildfires account for about 5% of global weather/climate economic losses but under 1% of deaths, 1980-2025 (see Loss Normalization) -- the smallest human toll of any phenomenon tracked here despite recent high-profile fire seasons. Two independent metrics track it: GFED5 dry matter combusted by fire type (1997-2024) and GWIS burned area in hectares (2002-2024, MODIS-derived) -- a distinct physical quantity from the US dashboard's MTBS acres-burned variable, and from each other. A reconciliation panel below checks whether the two metrics' current verdicts agree.
Summary Judgment
AR6's finding is about fire-weather conditions (atmospheric favorability); this page tracks realized combustion and burned area instead, which also depend on fuel and land management. Both wildfire records tracked here (GFED5, GWIS) are currently under the 30-year minimum record length, so neither renders a detection verdict yet.
IPCC finding (AR6 WG1 Ch.11 Executive Summary): "Fire weather conditions (compound hot, dry and windy events) have become more probable in some regions (medium confidence)." — see the full Detection & Attribution comparison for every phenomenon this site tracks.
Variables on this page
Every variable below is evaluated over a full reliable-trend window against the combined "detected change" standard (IPCC's likelihood criterion plus a magnitude-vs-variability check -- see the homepage or Methodology for the full definitions). Shown as alternative ways of characterizing this same phenomenon -- some from independent sources, others a different construction on the same underlying data (each variable's note says which).
| Variable | Finding | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global dry matter combusted | Computing… | Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5) |
| Global burned area | Computing… | Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS/JRC), via Our World in Data |
Wildfire — Dry Matter Combusted (GFED5)
AnnualGlobal dry-matter-combusted total across all fire types, from GFED5's pre-aggregated summary tables. DM depends on both area burned and fuel consumption completeness, a different quantity from the US dashboard's MTBS acres-burned variable. Unit: 1e12 g/year (DM).
Source: Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5)
Computing trend…
Select a fire type above (savanna, boreal forest, temperate forest, tropical forest, peat, agricultural, or the total). See Methodology for GFED5's data-quality distinction between 1997-2000 and the MODIS-era record from 2001 on.
This measures dry matter combusted (DM), not burned area (km²) — a different metric from the US dashboard's MTBS acres-burned variable. DM depends on both the area burned and the fuel load/consumption completeness in that area, so a year with a smaller burned area but denser fuel (e.g. boreal forest vs. savanna) can still show higher DM. 2023's Canada (boreal forest) DM stands as the record in the 1997-2024 series, 2.5x the next-highest year — matching Canada's documented 2023 wildfire season.
Wildfire — Global Burned Area (GWIS)
AnnualGlobal and continent-level annual burned area (MODIS-derived), a different metric from the GFED5 dry-matter-combusted index above -- burned area alone, distinct from fuel consumption. Unit: hectares.
Source: Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS/JRC), via Our World in Data
Computing trend…
Select the world total or an individual continent above, and a preset time window. See Methodology for how this metric differs from the GFED5 index and its measured decline in global burned area.
This measures raw burned area (hectares), the complement to the DM panel above — the two can diverge, since DM also depends on fuel load and consumption completeness. Africa averages ~67% of the global total (matching known savanna-fire dominance), and the global total has declined ~18% from 2002-2012 to 2013-2024, matching Andela et al. 2017's documented decline in global burned area — a contrast with DM's different pattern above, not a contradiction between the two panels.
Do the two metrics' current verdicts agree? This comparison runs live against this page's default windows, not from the historical validations above: GFED5 DM (2001-2024) shows time series too short (under 30 years); GWIS burned area (2002-2024) shows time series too short (under 30 years). This page draws no agree/diverge comparison here -- at least one of these two records sits under the 30-year minimum, so no detection judgment exists for it, and "agree" or "diverge" would misrepresent a comparison that never happened.