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Climate chronicles

Wildfires in 2023

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Wildfires burned 384 Mha of land in 2023, the highest since 2017 but 5% lower than the 2001–2022 average. These fires emitted an estimated 2,524 Tg C, 30% of which came from Canada’s record fire season.

Key points

  • The hottest year on record facilitated destructive wildfires on six continents, with 70% of total burned area occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.

  • Canada experienced its most severe fire season in the modern era (more than doubling burned area of the previous record), while extreme fire weather resulted in catastrophic fires in Hawaii, the Mediterranean, central Amazonia and central Chile.

  • Extreme events produced mass fatalities, lengthy evacuations and extensive economic losses.

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Fig. 1: Outcomes of and contributors to global wildfire in 2023.

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Acknowledgements

C.A.K. was supported by University of California Office of the President Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives M21PR3385. J.T.A. was supported by NSF under award number OAI-2019762. M.W.J. was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE\V01417X\1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA

    Crystal A. Kolden & John T. Abatzoglou

  2. School of Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Matthew W. Jones

  3. Northern Forestry Center, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Piyush Jain

Authors
  1. Crystal A. Kolden
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  2. John T. Abatzoglou
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  3. Matthew W. Jones
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  4. Piyush Jain
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Crystal A. Kolden.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Kolden, C.A., Abatzoglou, J.T., Jones, M.W. et al. Wildfires in 2023. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 238–240 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00544-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00544-y

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