10% of land land is at risk of disaster of forest fires, according to a study

In January, firefighters spent almost a month fighting more than a dozen forest fires in Los Angeles. Despite their best efforts, the two largest – Eaton and Palisades fires – are now ranking as the second and third destructive in the history of California, burning 38,000 acres together, burning 16,000 structures and killing 31 people.

Much of what makes this story so devastating is that it is not unique. All over the world – from Chile to Canada, Greece, Australia, Portugal, Algeria and the United States – very destructive, unruly disasters such as Eaton palisades and fires become the status quo. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science reveals the extent of this global overvoltage, noting that the risk areas of high forest near human populations cover 10% of the land mass of the earth.

“The increase in forest fire disasters is not only a perception, it is reality,” said co-author Crystal Kolden, associate professor and director of Fire Resilience Center at the University of California in Merced, in a university version. “For decades, forest fires have mainly had an impact on largely populated areas, but contemporary catastrophic fires kill more people and destroy more houses and infrastructure.”

The growing global cost of forest fires

The researchers have analyzed the global recordings of WildFire disasters from 1980 to 2023 using data from the private Munich Re’s Resureur Database and an international Disaster public database. They specifically examined the events that killed 10 or more or more among the 200 most economically damaging.

Of these 200 most expensive fires, 43% have occurred in the past 10 years. This reflects a quadruple increase in economic disasters in forest fires and a triple increase in forest fires responsible for 10 or more deaths since 1980.

The increase in the devastation took place in a context of ruling fire -fighting investment. In the United States, federal expenses on the abolition of fires have almost quadrupled at $ 4.4 billion by 2021, but disasters such as Los Angeles fires, Lahaina fire and Durkee fire have become increasingly common.

The team also developed a model that looked beyond the study period to identify the risk areas of high forest near human communities. This revealed the deadly risk for 10% of the earth’s land area and allowed researchers to successfully predict major disasters such as fatal fires from and Chile in 2024.

“This provides a roadmap for which the next catastrophic disasters are the most likely to occur,” said co-author David Bowman, professor and director of the Fire Center at the University of Tasmania, in the press release. “But climate change has fundamentally changed the game. We have to adapt to the way we live with fire, not just to fight it.”

Climate change leads to a “infernal” fire time

The researchers found that the extreme conditions of “bad weather” have become much more common, with severe fire and atmospheric drying more than doubling since 1980. Meanwhile, severe droughts have more than tripled. Half of all the disasters they analyzed have struck in the most conducive conditions for forest fires.

“A majority of global fire disasters have occurred with an infernal time of fire that submerged efforts to remove fires,” said co-author John SlaughterProfessor and climatologist at UC Merced, in the press release. “In addition, such extreme weather conditions become more likely, increasing the chances of disastrous fire,” he added. “Although we have seen that play in catastrophic fires in California, the same factors took place around the world.”

“It is unambiguous and it is clear that climate change plays a role,” the Guardian Author Calum Cunningham told The Guardian, a postdoctoral researcher at the fire center of the University of Tasmania. “It is not only larger fires, it is fires in increasingly extreme weather conditions that make them unstoppable.”