Wildfires are more extreme in Europe and North America, but global burning is oddly decreasing

It seems as if the world is afire this summer. But even as wildfires in Europe and North America grow more extreme, key worldwide burning statistics are at a record low largely because Africa and Asia are controlling fire more.Experts say these seemingly opposite trends are happening at the same time because of what humanity is doing to the planet.“It does seem like a paradox because we’re talking increases in fires, yet the global numbers have been going down and down. But they’re both true,” said fire scientist Mike Flannigan of Thompson Rivers University in Canada.Spain's wildfire is that country's largest on record at more than 193 square miles (500 square kilometers) while wildfires in Europe have burned just a bit under 2025's all-time high.

In Canada and the United States this summer, land burned by wildfires is at least 25% higher than the 10-year average and more than double what it was decades ago, according to national wildfire centers. And that’s the piece that you know has us shaking in our boots,'' Balch said.Fires decrease in Africa, AsiaAnd yet the world went into July this year with record low global emissions from burning fires, a key measure of their prevalence, the European climate center Copernicus reported. That is because fires in Africa and Asia are way down due to changing agricultural practices, fire management and where people are moving to, said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Copernicus.

Copernicus calculated that this year's carbon emissions from burning are the lowest since satellites first measured nearly 25 years ago — about half what they were in the early 2000s.“Africa dominates the global fire activity,” said UCLA water and fire scientist Park Williams. “So if there’s a trend in Africa, then that’s going to be the trend in the global fire activity. In sub-Saharan Africa, fire activity over the last 25 years has gone down pretty dramatically.”On average, more than three-quarters of the global emissions from the burning of plant material comes from Africa and Asia, Copernicus statistics show.…