Organic compound emissions from wildland fires could be 21 per cent higher than previously thought, according to study
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A new study, published in ACS’ Environmental Science and Technology, has found that wildfires worldwide could emit substantially more gases – including those that contribute to air pollution – than previously thought.
Estimates suggest that organic compound emissions from wildland fires could be 21 per cent higher than previously estimated.
To reach their conclusions, researchers assessed a database of burned land area for global forest, grassland, and peatland wildland fires from 1997 to 2023. They also collected data on carbon-based compounds released during fires as each vegetation type burned. Then, the team combined these datasets and calculated annual global emissions.
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Altogether, researchers estimated that wildland fires released an average of 143 million tons of airborne organic compounds each year of the study – a 21 per cent increase on earlier estimates.
Multiple emission hotspots for both wildfire and human activities that release airborne compounds emerged from the comparison: Equatorial Asia, Northern Hemisphere Africa and Southeast Asia. Researchers say that these regions’ air pollution challenges are complex, requiring different strategies to reduce them.
Are wildfires getting worse?
In short, yes – wildfires around the world are intensifying in both frequency and severity. Forest fires now burn more than twice as much tree cover each year as they did two decades ago.
For example, throughout the US, the area damaged by wildfires has doubled since the 1980s. In California alone, eight of the state’s 10 largest fires on record have occurred in the past five years.
One reason for the increased severity is climate change. Wildfires occur in regions impacted by a combination of drought, high temperatures and thunderstorms. Climate change is making all of these conditions more common.
2024 was the most extreme year for forest fires on record, with at least 13.5 million hectares of forest burned – an area roughly the size of Greece. Such a figure surpassed the previous record of 11.9 million hectares, set in 2023, by around 13 per cent.
Wildfires not only damage forests, but can also cause real impacts to human health. It is estimated that wildfire smoke causes more than 1.5 million deaths each year.
