Record damages and costs from wildfires in 2025, despite global area burned among lowest

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of East Anglia

News Release 31-May-2026

A new analysis of global wildfire activity in 2025 reveals the world experienced some of the most destructive and deadly fire events in recent history, despite the second lowest area burned since 2002.

It highlights a continued trend toward fires becoming increasingly extreme, costly, and disastrous - both economically and in lives lost.

Led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), an international team of scientists has summarised the wildfire events of 2025 for the Year in Review article, published today as part of the Climate Chronicles series in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

They found 335 million hectares burned globally in 2025 - 16 per cent below the long-term average - while total fire-related carbon emissions fell to 11 billion tonnes of CO₂, the third lowest year since 2002.

However, a series of “catastrophic” wildfires across Canada, the United States, Europe and South Korea resulted in over 300,000 evacuations and over 90 fatalities, underscoring the rising societal toll of extreme wildfire events.

Financially, 2025 became the costliest year on record for insured wildfire losses globally, with the fires accounting for 38 per cent of all insured natural hazard losses.

The LA fires alone were the fifth most costly natural disaster in history in terms of insured losses, at 40 billion USD, and 140 billion USD in total losses.

Dr Matthew Jones, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA, said: “2025 shows that a ‘quiet’ fire year globally can still be devastating. We are seeing a growing disconnect between total area burned and real-world impacts, with risk increasingly determined by fire location, intensity and exposure.

“The wildfires of 2025 demonstrate that without decisive action, societies will continue to face escalating human, economic and environmental risks in an era of more extreme fires.”

The analysis also involved scientists the University of California, Merced, the Met Office Hadley Centre, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal), the Canadian Forest Service, Imperial College London and Kasetsart University (Thailand).

The authors say their findings reinforce the urgent need for rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions to limit further climate warming, and far stronger adaptation, including proactive vegetation management. Also, resilient infrastructure and evacuation planning suited to a world of increasingly fire-prone landscapes and fast-moving fires.

A new era of wildfire risk

They also suggest the 2025 wildfire season reflects a global shift: as savannah fires decline, extreme and destructive wildfires are increasingly emerging in temperate and high-latitude regions, where fuel-rich forests can burn with unprecedented intensity and climate-driven drought and heatwaves amplify fire weather.

Population growth at the wildland-urban boundary also increases exposure, while firefighting resources are strained as multiple regions face simultaneous emergencies.

Another extreme fire season in North America

The team found that while global emissions declined, Canada’s boreal forests continued to break records, entering a third consecutive year of extreme fire activity.

Between 2023 and 2025, Canadian wildfires released more CO₂ than during the entire preceding 15-year period, driven by persistent burning in carbon-rich forest ecosystems - in 2025, unusually high emissions were centred on the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

These ecosystems, historically adapted to infrequent fires, are now experiencing unprecedented fire recurrence, raising concerns about long-term carbon loss, ecosystem degradation, and weakened forest recovery.

In January 2025, the Palisades and Eaton fires became the most destructive wildfire event in US history. Fuelled by large stocks of critically dry vegetation and extreme winds, the fires killed 31 people, destroyed nearly 12,000 homes and forced over 150,000 evacuations. They also produced hazardous air pollution affecting 10 million residents.

“Deadly human-caused wildfires in California, Europe, and South Korea in the same year as the extensive consumption of carbon stocks in Canada from lightning-caused fires highlights how rapidly climate change is producing conditions for extreme wildfires to thrive across a range of biomes and seasons,” said Prof Crystal Kolden, of University of California, Merced.

“The co-occurrence of multiple devastating fires is particularly problematic, hampering resource sharing between countries and putting more civilians at risk. Unfortunately, future fire projections show these types of outbreaks will only increase.”

Widespread evacuations in Europe and South Korea

Severe drought and repeated heat extremes drove major wildfire outbreaks across the Mediterranean, leading to 28 confirmed deaths, over 120,000 evacuations, and simultaneous emergency resource requests from six European nations.

Spain experienced its largest burned area since 2002, with more than 350,000 hectares affected by August and eight fatalities. In Portugal, thousands of firefighters battled large fast-moving fires, including the largest wildfire in national history.

Across Greece, Türkiye, and Cyprus, prolonged heatwaves enabled destructive fires that displaced tens of thousands, while France endured its largest fire since 1949.

The UK recorded its highest burned area on record, including its first documented ‘megafire’ in Scotland exceeding 10,000 hectares.

Dr Theodore Keeping, of World Weather Attribution at Imperial College London, said: “Studies clearly show that the hot-dry-windy weather conditions which drove devastating wildfires across Southern Europe have been made much more likely due to human-caused climate change.

“Whilst identifying trends in wildfires on the continent are complicated by shifts in land-use, it's clear that fast spreading, intense wildfire events are becoming more likely as weather extremes increase.”

South Korea experienced its deadliest and largest wildfire outbreak, with 32 deaths, over 37,000 displaced residents and more than 100,000 hectares burned. Extreme winds and unusually high temperatures enabled the fires to spread rapidly through mountainous wildland–urban boundary areas, resulting in significant loss of life and infrastructure.

‘Wildfires in 2025’, Matthew W Jones, John T Abatzoglou, Chantelle Burton, Paulo M Fernandes, Piyush Jain, Theodore Keeping, Veerachai Tanpipat and Crystal A Kolden, is published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.