Global study finds fourfold rise in costly wildfires since 1980

A global study published in the journal Science found that catastrophic wildfires that inflict major economic damage or cause large numbers of deaths have become markedly more frequent and severe since 1980, researchers said. An international team led by Calum Cunningham of the University of Tasmania analyzed records from 1980 through 2023 and concluded that the frequency of the 200 most economically damaging wildfires rose roughly fourfold, while fires killing 10 or more people have become about three times more common. The study highlighted recent destructive events, including lethal urban-interface fires in the United States and other countries, as evidence the trend is continuing.

The researchers defined disaster fires as those among the 200 largest losses relative to national gross domestic product or those causing at least 10 deaths. They combined more than four decades of reinsurance data with international disaster records to identify and analyze trends. The team found that 43 of the 200 most damaging fires occurred in the last 10 years of the study period and that counts of such events rose sharply after 2015. Mediterranean-climate regions of Europe, southern South...