Kelley et al. (2025) State of Wildfires 2024–2025

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-10-16
• Authors: Kelley, Douglas I., Burton, Chantelle, Giuseppe, Francesca Di, Jones, Matthew W., Barbosa, Maria L.F., Brambleby, Esther, McNorton, Joe R., Liu, Zhongwei, Bradley, Anna S.I., Blackford, Katie, Burke, Eleanor, Ciavarella, Andrew, Di Tomaso, Enza Di, Eden, Jonathan, Ferreira, Igor José M., Fiedler, Lukas, Hartley, Andrew J., Keeping, Theodore R., Lampe, Seppe, Lombardi, Anna, Steinmann, Carmen B., et al.
• DOI: 10.3929/ethz-c-000786294

Research Groups

The State of Wildfires project (an annual collaborative initiative integrating fire observations and modelling with regional expertise).

Short Summary

This second annual report from The State of Wildfires project tracks global and regional fire activity for the 2024–2025 season, revealing that global carbon emissions from fires totalled 2.2 Pg C (9% above average) despite below-average burned area, driven by extreme events in South America and Canada, with climate change significantly increasing the likelihood and impact of these extreme wildfires.

Objective

• To systematically track global and regional fire activity for each annual fire season, analyse the causes of prominent extreme wildfire events, and project the likelihood of similar events occurring in future climate scenarios.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, with detailed regional analysis focusing on Northeast Amazonia, the Pantanal–Chiquitano border regions (Brazil and Bolivia), Southern California, and the Congo Basin.
• Temporal Scale: Analysis covers the March 2024 to February 2025 fire season, with historical comparisons since 2003 and future projections extending to 2100.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: PoF model (for fire causality), ConFLAME (for extreme event attribution and projections).
• Data sources: Cutting-edge fire observations, updated annual statistics on wildfire extent (Jones et al., 2025), outputs from modelling of fire causality, and codebase for extreme event attribution/projections. Implied use of satellite data for burned area and emissions, and reanalysis data for weather anomalies.

Main Results

• During the 2024–2025 fire season, fire-related carbon emissions totalled 2.2 Pg C, which is 9% above average and the sixth highest on record since 2003, despite below-average global burned area.
• Extreme fire seasons in South America’s rainforests, dry forests, and wetlands, and in Canada’s boreal forests, significantly contributed to the global carbon emissions total.
• Fire carbon emissions were over 4 times above average in Bolivia, 3 times above average in Canada, and approximately 50% above average in Brazil and Venezuela.
• Wildfires caused 100 fatalities in Nepal, 34 in South Africa, and 31 in Los Angeles, with additional fatalities reported in Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Portugal, and Türkiye.
• The Eaton and Palisades fires in Southern California caused 150,000 evacuations and USD 140 billion in damages.
• Communities in Brazil, Bolivia, Southern California, and northern India were exposed to fine particulate matter at concentrations 13–60 times the World Health Organization’s daily air quality standards.
• Anomalous weather (prolonged drought in tropical regions, extreme heat, wind, and antecedent fuel build-up in California) created conditions for regional extremes, while fuel availability and human ignitions shaped spatial patterns and temporal fire dynamics.
• Climate change attribution analyses revealed:
  • Extreme fire weather in Northeast Amazonia was 30–70 times more likely, increasing burned area roughly 4-fold.
  • In the Pantanal–Chiquitano, fire weather was 4–5 times more likely, with 35-fold increases in burned area.
  • Burned area was 25 times higher in Southern California due to climate change.
  • The Congo Basin’s fire weather was 3–8 times more likely with climate change, with a 2.7-fold increase in burned area.
• Projections under a medium–high emissions scenario (SSP370) by 2100 indicate that events on the scale of 2024–2025 will become up to 57% more frequent in Northeast Amazonia, 34% in the Pantanal–Chiquitano, and 50% in the Congo Basin.
• Strong climate mitigation (SSP126) can limit these frequency increases to below 15% in all three regions.
• The future trajectory of extreme fire likelihood in Southern California remains highly uncertain, though models suggest risk may decline.

Contributions

• Provides a systematic, annual global assessment of wildfire activity, emissions, and impacts, integrating cutting-edge observations and modelling.
• Quantifies the contribution of climate change to the likelihood and severity of specific extreme wildfire events across diverse global regions.
• Projects future changes in extreme wildfire frequency under different climate change scenarios, highlighting the benefits of climate action.
• Releases 13 new datasets and model codebases, including updated annual wildfire statistics, a fire causality model (PoF), and an extreme event attribution/projection model (ConFLAME), enhancing transparency and reproducibility.
• Offers guidance for policy and practice towards improved preparedness, mitigation, adaptation, and societal benefit in the face of changing global wildfire hazards.

Funding

Not explicitly stated in the provided text, but it is an annual report from 'The State of Wildfires project'.

Citation

@article{Kelley2025State,
  author = {Kelley, Douglas I. and Burton, Chantelle and Giuseppe, Francesca Di and Jones, Matthew W. and Barbosa, Maria L.F. and Brambleby, Esther and McNorton, Joe R. and Liu, Zhongwei and Bradley, Anna S.I. and Blackford, Katie and Burke, Eleanor and Ciavarella, Andrew and Di Tomaso, Enza Di and Eden, Jonathan and Ferreira, Igor José M. and Fiedler, Lukas and Hartley, Andrew J. and Keeping, Theodore R. and Lampe, Seppe and Lombardi, Anna and Steinmann, Carmen B. and al., et},
  title = {State of Wildfires 2024–2025},
  journal = {Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich)},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3929/ethz-c-000786294},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000786294}
}