The worst kinds of wildfires are becoming more frequent: Study

HOBART – Wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent and severe globally, costing more human lives and racking up more economic damage than in previous decades, according to a new study by the University of Tasmania.

The researchers, who published their work in the journal Science earlier in October, found that more than 43 per cent of the costliest fires since 1980 happened in the past 10 years. 

“We’re now seeing societal effects of fire that are much larger than ever before, fuelled by climate change,” Dr Calum Cunningham, research fellow at the Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania, said. 

To gauge the severity of the fire damages, Dr Cunningham and his colleagues looked at their cost relative to national gross domestic product, a metric designed to iron out differences between rich and poor countries. They determined that conditions that spark fires, including drought, intensified in the study period. 

The researchers, who also looked at the actual cost of the fire damage, identified 43 events since 1980 that generated direct losses of US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) or more. Over half of these also took place in the past 10 years.

Most of these events happened in North America, where the value of infrastructure affected by the fires is higher. The cost of the losses also reflects the kind of communities ravaged by the fires: densely populated urban areas adjacent to wild lands. In the US, there are more than 60,000 communities at risk of fire in these zones, according to the US Fire Administration.

The study found the frequency of deadly fires increased as well. The authors identified gaps in disaster adaptation and said there is a need for improved communication and evacuation planning. “Fire disasters are not only influenced by climate change,” Dr Cunningham said. “They are also influenced by the way we manage built and natural environments.”

The period the study covered included a series of damaging fires over the past decade, including in Canada in 2016 and in California in 2017. In 2018, the

Camp Fire in Paradise, California, killed 85 people and cost about US$16 billion

. In 2020, fires in California caused US$100 million in emissions damages and in 2023, the Lahaina fire killed 102 people in Hawaii. 

The analysis does not include several recent fires, including in Valparaiso, Chile, in 2024 and in Los Angeles in early 2025. The

Los Angeles fires

were most likely the costliest fire disasters in history, with about US$65 billion in direct losses, according to the study. The economic effects of the LA fires were “literally off the charts, more than double the magnitude of prior events”, Dr Cunningham said. BLOOMBERG