State of wildfires 2023–2024

This inaugural State of Wildfires report systematically analyses fire activity worldwide, identifying extreme events from the March 2023-February 2024 fire season. It assess the causes, predictability, and attribution of these events to climate change and land use and forecast future risks under different climate scenarios.

Attribution analyses indicated that modelled anomalies in burned area were up to 40 %, 18 %, and 50 % higher due to climate change in Canada, Greece, and western Amazonia during the 2023-2024 fire season, respectively. Meanwhile, the probability of extreme fire seasons of these magnitudes has increased significantly due to anthropogenic climate change, with a 2.9-3.6-fold increase in likelihood of high fire weather in Canada and a 20.0-28.5-fold increase in Amazonia. By the end of the century, events of similar magnitude to 2023 in Canada are projected to occur 6.3-10.8 times more frequently under a medium-high emission scenario (SSP370)