Why Patagonia burns every summer: climate change, shifting fire regimes, and policy failures

More than 45,000 hectares—an area almost twice the size of the city of Buenos Aires—have already been consumed by fire in Northern Patagonia this summer, with large blazes in the Neuquén, Río Negro, La Pampa, and Chubut provinces. In just one month, wildfires scorched an area equivalent to the total area burned last summer.

Patagonia’s 2025–2026 fire season will likely be one of the most severe in recent decades, and the crisis is not an isolated phenomenon. Extreme fire seasons are also affecting other regions of the world, from Australia to the Northern Hemisphere. In mid-January, large-scale fires broke out in Chile. Fire is both a regional and global problem.

“If we look at what has happened from November 15 until today, we are facing one of the worst fire seasons, especially in northwestern Chubut, where thousands of hectares of natural ecosystems, homes, and livelihoods have already been lost,” said biologist Javier Grosfeld, a researcher at the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Research (INIBIOMA) at the National University of Comahue. (One hectare is about 2.5 acres.)

In Northern Patagonia alone, between 1999 and 2022 some 250 fires larger than 10 hectares were recorded, according to a study published in 2025. Juan Paritsis, a forest ecology specialist at INIBIOMA, explained that this shows a “slight upward trend in the annual burned area,” which would be much greater if the last three years—which were very extreme—were included.

The outlook is worrying: “We estimate that this trend will be extremely pronounced in the next decade.” Climate change, landscapes loaded with dry vegetation, and fires that are becoming more intense and harder to control are coming together to create a dangerous mix.

A climate that fuels fire. According to the Argentinian National Meteorological Service, last spring was the warmest in the region in the last six decades, and the first days of January began with temperatures six degrees above average.

Records show a clear shift since the mid-2000s: Between 2006 and 2008, the average annual temperature increased by about 1 degree Celsius, while rainfall decreased by around 20 percent compared to previous years.

In places like El Bolsón, a town in the southwest of Río Negro Province, the number of days per summer with extreme fire danger has gone from just two or three 20 years ago to virtually every day now. The fire danger index increased by up to 30 percent between 1980 and 2007, and the fire season lengthened by almost 25 days.

These changes not only increase the likelihood of fires but also make them more difficult to control, researchers say. With more heat, less humidity, and drier vegetation, any spark today finds a landscape far more flammable than it was decades ago.

Another clear sign of the changing fire regime is that the fire no longer diminishes at night. “Now it burns almost as much at night as during the day,” explained Manuel Jaramillo, a forestry engineer and director of the Argentine Wildlife Foundation.
An increasingly flammable landscape. Climate is not the only factor explaining the increasing scale of the fires. For the affected areas in Chubut Province, Grosfeld described a “chronicle of a disaster foretold,” the result of decades of profound ecosystem transformations.

“What we find is a fatal combination,” he explained. “On the one hand, there has been a severe transformation of the native forest through plantations of exotic conifers—primarily radiata, Douglas fir, ponderosa, and Murraya pines—which have invaded the natural ecosystem of lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) and coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi) trees. On the other hand, there is a recurring history of fires: In the last century, this region has experienced more than 15 major fires.”

According to Grosfeld, this dynamic has created a landscape increasingly prone to burning. Some of these introduced species are especially adapted to fire: The radiata pine, for example, has cones that open with heat and release seeds immediately after a fire, accelerating its regeneration and displacing the native forest. The result is a massive accumulation of highly flammable fuel, which, combined with extreme weather conditions, triggers increasingly explosive fires.

“This is transforming the territory into an extremely flammable landscape, where any spark, any carelessness, or lack of maintenance ends in disaster,” he warned.

Paritsis and his team are using remote sensors to measure the energy released by wildfires, and their results show that fires burn more intensely in pine plantations. “The energy released is much higher in a pine-dominated area than in a native forest, producing more intense fires,” he explained.

Added to this is another problem: Even if seeds remain and there are wet springs, if there is pressure from livestock grazing or subsequent landscape disturbances, the native trees often struggle to regenerate. “In many cases, the forest simply doesn’t manage to return,” Paritsis warned. When that happens, it is usually replaced by scrubland or invasive pine trees. “If there was some invasion and there’s a fire, after the fire, there will be more invasion,” he said.

Lightning strikes that ignite the fuse. The 2025–2026 season began very early, with outbreaks started by lightning storms. Two resulted in large-scale fires: one in the Río Turbio valley in Chubut, where more than 3,100 hectares burned, and another in Lago Menéndez, within Los Alerces National Park, which exceeded 9,000 hectares (about 22,000 acres).

For Paritsis, this is not an isolated incident: “This is also seen in the Northern Hemisphere: thunderstorms are an effect of global warming.”

In Patagonia, he explained, until the last century these phenomena were recorded further east, in Argentina’s steppe, but now they are moving west, into the denser forests, where fuel is abundant and highly flammable due to prolonged dryness. Their dynamics have also changed: They are no longer an exclusive phenomenon of summer—January and February—and of hot afternoons. Now, they also occur in autumn and spring, even in the morning.
Grosfeld warned that these storms are characterized by their intensity: “What is striking about thunderstorms in Northern Patagonia is their extreme ferocity.” He added that this multiplies the number of simultaneous outbreaks. When lightning strikes, the wood of a tree can remain smoldering for several days, waiting for the wind to oxygenate the embers and start a fire. Added to this is a foreseeable problem: Lightning strikes are completely random, and being so, they can occur in areas difficult for firefighters to access.
Beyond putting out fires. Faced with this scenario, specialists agree that the response cannot be limited to fighting the fire. For Grosfeld, the starting point is acknowledging the enormous deficit in prevention and risk management.

“The key is to work towards having more resilient communities and intervene in the territory through vegetation and fuel management,” he said.

He was critical of the lack of preparedness: “There are no evacuation plans, no clearly marked meeting points, no contingency plans. We have a major deficit in risk management in Patagonia,” he warned.

The Argentinian president, Javier Milei, has also slashed funding over the past two years for programs that help with wildfire prevention and disaster response.

Jaramillo said that we live on a planet shaped by fire and that, with climate change, “that shaping will become increasingly aggressive.”

One of the most critical changes is the expansion of populations within the forest, which multiplies wildland-urban interface fires. He recalled that in 2021, in the Andean Region, some 600 homes burned down.

Both researchers agreed on the need to strengthen the role of the state. In this regard, Paritsis mentioned the concept of “defensible space.” “It’s about maintaining radii around the house without vegetation in direct contact. It’s like having a protective shield,” he explained.

“In places like California or Australia, fire is more frequent, and the species are better adapted. Here we still have fewer fires, but the frequency will increase. We are going to have to learn to live with fire and plan for more resilient landscapes,” he concluded.

What is burning today in Patagonia is part of a phenomenon repeating across the planet. A reminder that, in the era of climate change, fire is no longer an extraordinary event but a new normal—not an exception, but a continuing risk.