Severe heatwaves and droughts are making extreme wildfires more frequent and intense worldwide - Met Office

The latest State of Wildfire report is building unequivocal evidence of how climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme wildfires.

Human-driven climate change made wildfires in parts of South America and Southern California many times larger and more destructive, according to an annual assessment by international experts.

According to climate models, the Los Angeles wildfires in January were twice as likely and 25 times larger, in terms of burned area, in the current climate than they would have been in a world with no human-caused global warming. It also made last year’s burning in the Pantanal-Chiquitano region in South America 35 times larger, while also driving record-breaking fires in the Amazon and Congo.

However, it is still too early to tell how much climate change contributed to the impacts of the wildfires.

The new report warns that more severe heatwaves and droughts are making extreme wildfires more frequent and intense worldwide, resulting in increasing threats to people’s lives – through fire and polluting smoke – as well as property, economies and the environment.

The second annual State of Wildfires report has been co-led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), the UK Met Office, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The scientists used satellite observations as well as advanced modelling to identify and investigate the causes of wildfires from the last fire season (March 2024-February 2025) and the role that climate and land use change played.