Warming made the devastating L.A. wildfires earlier this year twice as likely and 25 times larger, according to a new report on global wildfires.
“Climate change is not only creating more dangerous fire-prone weather conditions, but it is also influencing the rates at which vegetation grows and provides fuel for the fires to spread,” said coauthor Francesca Di Giuseppe of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. In L.A., uncommonly heavy rainfall drove the growth of shrubs, which turned to tinder when the region was hit by an exceptional drought.
The latest State of Wildfires report, which is undertaken yearly by an international team of experts, finds the worsening heat and drought also fueled record fires in the Congo and the Amazon. In the Pantanal-Chiquitano region of South America, fires last summer were 35 times larger as a result of warming.
The report concluded that between March 2024 and February 2025, wildfires globally burned an area larger than India and produced 8 billion tons of emissions, roughly the yearly output of the U.S. and E.U. combined.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, larger and more intense wildfires have driven a surge in emissions. Last year, carbon dioxide levels rose by 3.5 parts per million, the biggest one-year jump on record, even as fossil fuel emissions stayed relatively flat. Scientists say that fires are yielding more carbon dioxide while drought is inhibiting the ability of forests to draw it down. Warming is also making the oceans less able to absorb our emissions.
“The clear message is that it is getting harder all the time to bring climate change under control,” said Phil Williamson of the University of East Anglia, “yet more necessary than ever that we do so.”
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