Wildfire disasters are increasingly in the news, yet less land is burning globally—here’s why

Around the world, around 440 million people have been exposed to a forest fire stocked on their house at a given time between 2002 and 2021, according to new research. This is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the European Union, and the number has continued to increase – up 40% during these two decades.

With intense and destructive fires often in the news, it may seem that more land burns. And in some parts of the world, including western North America, it is.

Globally, however, our team of fire researchers also found that the total burned area has in fact decreased by 26% during these two decades.

How is it possible?

We found the motivating reasons for these changes in Africa, which has the vast majority of all the burned lands, but the total burned area fell. Agricultural activities in Africa are increasingly fragmented by wild areas that are subject to burns. A cultivated agricultural field and roads can help stop the spread of a fire. But more farms and development in wild areas also mean that more people can be exposed to forest fires.

Based on our expertise in climate and forest fire sciences and geospatial modeling, we have analyzed the global activity of forest fires over the past two decades. The results highlight certain current erroneous perceptions and show how the risk of fire for humans is changing.

World area burned down, intense fire

Forest fires have been a natural process that has existed for as long as vegetation has covered the earth. Occasional fires in a forest are healthy. They remove dead wood and branch leaves and waste, leaving less fuel for future fires. This helps prevent forest fires from becoming too intense.

However, intense fires can also be serious threats to human life, infrastructure and economies, especially since more and more people are moving in fire -subject areas.

North and southern America have both increased an increase in intense forest fires over the past two decades. Certain notable examples include Camp Fire 2018 in California and Record Canadian Forest Fires in 2023, which generated generalized smoke which covered large parts of Canada and the Eastern United States, and even reached Europe.

The increase in intense forest fires lines up with the intensification of fires around the world. Heat, low humidity and strong winds can make forest fires more likely to spread and more difficult to control. The number of days conducive to extreme fire behavior and new fire ignition has increased by more than 50% in the past four decades in the world, raising the chances that the quantity of burned land in a particular region establishes a new record.

But the fire time is not the only influence on the risk of forest fire. The quantity of dry vegetation, and whether in a continuous or broken stretch, influences the risk of fire. The same goes for sources of ignition, such as vehicles and electric lines in wild areas. Human activities can start fires and climate change of fuel, which dries the land more, by amplifying the activity of forest fires. Fire removal practices that do not allow low -intensity fires to burn can lead to the accumulation of flammable vegetation, which increases the risk of intense fires.

North America is a fraction of the total burned area

In recent years, a growing number of forest fire disasters in North America, Europe and Australia have drawn world attention. Los Angeles fatal fires in 2025 at the 2019-2020 Australian bush fires and for forest fires in Athens, Greece, flames are increasingly emptyed by human colonies, claiming lives and livelihoods.

However, exposure to forest fires is not limited to these large -scale regions – we simply hear more.

The United States, Europe and Australia collectively represent less than 2.5% of the world human exposure to forest fires. Human exposure to fire occurs when people’s houses are located directly in the area burned by a forest fire.

In striking contrast, Africa alone represents approximately 85% of all forest exhibitions and 65% of the world area burned.

Remarkably, only five Central African countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola – half of the world’s experience in forest fires, even if they represent less than 3% of the world’s population. These countries receive sufficient humidity to support plant growth, but they are dry enough for trees and plants to burn in frequent fires which, in certain places, occur several times a year.

Regional trends and forest fire engines

We found that exposure to forest fires increased on all continents except Europe and Oceania, but the underlying engines of the increase varied according to the region.

In Africa, agricultural expansion has led more people living in areas subject to fire.

In North America, especially in the United States, the intensification of fire time – hot, dry and winding conditions conducive to propagation fires – has led to increasingly uncontrollable forest fires that threaten human establishments.

In South America, a combination of the increase in the frequency and severity of drought, intensifying heat waves and agricultural expansion has amplified the intensity of forest fires and increased the population in the regions subject to fire.

In Asia, the growth of populations in the areas subject to fire, combined more days of friendly time, has led to increased human exposure to forest fires.

On the other hand, Europe and Oceania have experienced a decrease in exhibitions to the forest, largely due to more people moving in cities and fewer lives in rural areas and fire subjects.

What to do about it

Communities can take measures to prevent fires from strong forms from spreading.

For example, vegetation management, such as prescribed fires, can avoid feeding intense fires. Public education, the application of policies and engineering solutions – such as the reduction and clearance of vegetation along roads and electric lines – can help reduce the ignitions caused by humans.

While climate change intensifies fires and people continue to move to fire -subject zones, proactive attenuation will be more and more critical.

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