Wildfire risk assessment

The most high-risk conditions for fires are increasingly happening across countries at the same time, making resulting wildfires even more challenging to tackle, research reveals.

A new study, led by CMCC and Coventry University, reveals that climate change will dramatically expand wildfire danger across the globe, with up to 91% of fire-prone regions experiencing heightened risk by the end of this century.

Wildfires across South America and Southern California were up to 30 times larger due to human-driven climate change, according to a major new international report.

Human-caused climate change increased the area burned by wildfires, called bushfires in Australia, by a magnitude of 30 in some regions in the world.

You may live many miles away from a wildfire, but it could still kill you. That's because all that smoke wafting in from afar poses a mortal risk.

As of 1st September, around 380,000 hectares (ha) have burned across Spain since the start of the year, according to the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

It is estimated that global insured catastrophe losses reached USD 80 billion in the first half of 2025, above trend.

Recurring flash floods highlight the risks of heavy rainfall on previously burned areas. While Ruidoso's floods are the most recent example, colliding climate hazards threaten communities, ecosystems, and the services that these nature systems provide.

Sheldon Strydom studies the relationship between weather and fire, in particular how Berg winds, also known as mountain flow events, are linked to periods of enhanced fire danger.

New research estimates that during the study period a total of 164,000 deaths resulted from wildfire PM2.5. It determined that 15,000 of those deaths were attributable to climate change. Absent climate change, the total would have been just 149,000.