Large forest fires in Canada, the United States and Russia have more than doubled in 20 years

The most powerful the frequency and power of forest fires have increased throughout the world over the past 20 years.

A drastic increase in extremely intense fires has been seen in large coniferous forests in Canada, the western United States and Russia, say wildfire researchers.

This has now also been proven from temperature data collected by satellites.

Satellites the data confirms what many have surmised based on the news about large forest fires.

“Surprisingly, statistics compiled from large forest fires have not been presented on a global scale before,” says the ecologist Calum Cunningham science journal in the news department of Nature.

Cunningham studies bushfires at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

Researchers have already confirmed that wildfires have become more common, for example, in large forests in the western parts of the United States.

However, it is difficult to perceive an even bigger, global trend.

The number and strength of large forest fires have been recorded in a study published by a scientific journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Cunninghamin the group compiled data on the heat radiation that almost 31 million forest fires produced on Earth in the last 20 years.

The energy intensity of these forest fires was calculated over two decades. The researchers focused on the fires with the highest intensity, more than 99.99 percent of the fires.

The researchers counted about 2,900 fires as such “extreme” fires.

The result was that the frequency of occurrence of extreme forest fires worldwide increased 2.2 times between 2003 and 2023.

The average intensity of the 20 fiercest forest fires increased 2.3 times.

Of the extremes the large forests of the western United States and western Canada are most affected by the fires. These forests have the most conifers, such as spruce and pine.

In the northern zone of coniferous forests, i.e. boreal forests in Canada, the United States and Russia, fires increased significantly. In these countries, the number of fires increased 7.3 times.

The results are not surprising, a hydroclimatologist comments on the measurements in Nature Park Williamswho works at the University of California, Los Angeles.

According to Williams, this is the first convincing evidence that extreme fires have increased around the world.

Research does not link the growth of the strongest fires directly to the fact that the climate has warmed.

Cunningham, however, tells Nature that “climate change is definitely having an effect here”.

The rise in temperature dries out ecosystems, such as coniferous forests. Drought is like fuel that increases the size of fires and their duration.

The power of fires has also increased at night in the past 20 years. This denies that the rise in nighttime temperatures increases the risk of fires.

Fires Statistics around the world have been confused by the fact that less and less grassland has been burned each year.

The phenomenon is largely due to the fact that the burning of grasslands and savannas and the fires in them have decreased in Africa.

In the study, the large forest fires in Australia and southern Europe did not yet emerge clearly. It may only be a matter of time before they are also clearly visible in the statistics of forest fires all over the world, says Cunningham.