Forest Loss Caused by Wildfires Reached Record Levels in 2023 and 2024

New data from UMD’s GLAD Lab shows fires now account for more than 40% of global forest disturbance, up sharply from past decades.

Forest loss caused by wildfires reached record levels in 2023 and 2024, according to data from the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) Laboratory. The study, led by Research Professor Peter Potapov at the Department of Geographical Sciences, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An estimated 36.6 million hectares of forest were disturbed by fire in 2023, followed by 38.3 million hectares in 2024. These are the highest totals recorded since global satellite monitoring began in 2001.

Fires accounted for 42% of all forest disturbance during those two years, a sharp rise from the 26% to 29% recorded between 2001 and 2019. Researchers found a statistically significant global increase in fire-related forest disturbance from 2002 to 2024, with the exception of subtropical regions.

Compared to the 2002–2022 average, the 2023–2024 annual average of fire-related forest disturbance was 2.2 times higher globally. The largest increases occurred in tropical forests, where fire disturbance tripled, and in boreal forests, where it more than doubled. In major fire years such as 2016 and 2024, more than a quarter of all fire-related forest loss occurred in the Tropics.

At the continental level, North America experienced the sharpest increase, with fire-related forest disturbance rising 3.7 times over the previous two decades. Latin America followed with a 3.4-fold increase, and Africa with a 2.4-fold increase. Statistically significant upward trends were also found in Eurasia.

The top 10 countries with the largest increases between the two time periods include Canada, Russia, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Guyana, Peru and Greece.

Photo by iStock

Published on Mon, Jul 21, 2025 - 4:24PM