Unprecedentedly high global forest disturbance due to fire in 2023 and 2024.

Abstract

Global forests provide key ecosystem services, from climate regulation to biodiversity habitat, but are under increasing pressure from the combined impacts of climate and land use change. Here, we show that forest disturbance due to fire is growing globally, with the most dramatic increases in intact forest landscapes, highlighting an existential threat to remaining high biomass, high biodiversity forests. The global annual area of forest disturbance due to fire for 2023 and 2024 was highest since the beginning of monitoring in 2001. Compared to 2002-2022 average annual forest disturbance due to fire, the 2023-2024 average was 2.2 times higher globally and 3 times higher in the Tropics. More than ¼ of all 2024 forest disturbance from fire occurred in tropical forests. We found a statistically significant increasing trend of forest disturbance due to fire from 2002 to 2024 in all climate domains except Subtropical. High forest, low deforestation tropical countries were not exempt, with Guyana and the Republic of the Congo experiencing record forest disturbance due to fire. Our results agree with recently estimated increases in global forest fire emissions and active fire detections. The unprecedented scale of fires in the world's most remote forests is a potential harbinger of ecosystem tipping points. Protecting these remaining unfragmented high conservation value forests from this threat poses a daunting and as yet undeveloped policy and capacity challenge.