Wildfires burn on every continent except Antarctica, but they concentrate in a handful of regions where climate, vegetation, and human activity overlap. Africa is the most fire-prone continent on Earth, responsible for more than half of all global area burned each year. Beyond Africa, major wildfire zones include the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, the Mediterranean basin, Australia’s eucalyptus bushlands, and the tropical forests of the Amazon. Each region burns for different reasons and at different scales.
African Savannahs: The World’s Fire Capital
Africa accounts for more than half of the world’s burned area and more than half of all fire-related greenhouse gas emissions globally. That surprises most people, since wildfire coverage in the media tends to focus on North America or Australia. Over 80% of Africa’s burned land is savanna, with the rest split between forests and croplands.
Fire in Africa is largely a human tool. For centuries, people across sub-Saharan Africa have used fire to prepare agricultural fields, control bush growth, improve grazing land, maintain biodiversity, and reduce the risk of larger uncontrolled fires later. In a typical year, nonforest fires burn roughly 205 million hectares across the continent, forest fires burn about 41 million hectares, and cropland fires burn around 35 million hectares.
Interestingly, Africa’s total burned area declined by about 18.5% between 2002 and 2016, with most of that reduction in the Northern Hemisphere. Expanding cropland and shifting agricultural practices played a role, but they explain only about a third of the decline. Population growth and land fragmentation, which break up the continuous vegetation that carries fire across landscapes, appear to be larger factors.
Boreal Forests of Canada and Russia
The vast conifer forests stretching across northern Canada and Siberia make up the world’s largest land biome, and they burn at enormous scale. An estimated 5 to 20 million hectares of boreal forest burn every year, with Russia contributing the lion’s share. In central Siberia, large fire frequency is roughly ten times higher than in western Canada, and the total area burned is about three times greater.
The character of fire differs between the two countries. Russian boreal fires are far more numerous but individually smaller, averaging about 1,300 hectares each. Canadian boreal fires are less frequent but much larger, averaging around 5,900 hectares per fire. Canadian fires also tend to burn more intensely, releasing more carbon per hectare, but Russia’s sheer volume of burning produces higher total carbon emissions.
Canada’s 2023 fire season illustrated how extreme boreal burning can get. Canadian wildfires alone generated an estimated 480 million tonnes of carbon emissions that year, accounting for 22% of all global wildfire carbon emissions. Fire management agencies in both countries face growing pressure as warming temperatures push fire weather conditions past the limits of current suppression capacity.
The Mediterranean Basin
Southern Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East share a climate defined by hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. That seasonal rhythm creates ideal wildfire conditions: winter rain fuels dense vegetation growth, and summer heat dries it into ready fuel. Countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, and Algeria experience recurring fire seasons, typically peaking between June and September.
Climate change is intensifying this pattern. An analysis of 335 fire events in southern Spain between 2001 and 2020 found increasing drought severity and thermal anomalies linked to larger, more dangerous fires. One promising approach to reducing risk in the region involves preserving traditional agro-pastoral landscapes, where grazing and small-scale farming naturally break up continuous vegetation and reduce flammability.
Australia’s Bushfire Zones
Australia’s fire season varies by region. The tropical north typically burns between the dry winter months of June through October, while the temperate southeast burns during the hotter months from October through March. Eucalyptus forests, which contain highly flammable oils in their leaves, are especially prone to intense crown fires.
In a normal year, forests actually make up a relatively small share of Australia’s total burned area compared to grasslands and scrublands. But the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” shattered that pattern, burning more than four times the previous maximum recorded area in southeast Australian temperate forests. Research into that season identified extreme fire weather as the primary driver, linked mainly to two ocean-atmosphere patterns: the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode. The more commonly discussed El Niño played a comparatively smaller role.
The Amazon and Tropical Forests
Unlike the other regions on this list, tropical rainforests do not burn naturally. The Amazon is too wet to sustain fire under normal conditions. Almost all fire in the Amazon is set deliberately by people clearing land for agriculture and cattle ranching. Trees are felled, left to dry, and then ignited. This makes Amazonian fire a direct symptom of deforestation rather than a natural process.
The numbers are staggering. In 2022, satellites detected over 791,000 deforestation-related fires across the Amazon basin, and at least 11,000 square kilometers of forest were cleared. Brazil was responsible for more than three-quarters of all carbon lost to deforestation in the Amazon that year, releasing over 80 million metric tons of carbon. The vast majority of that burning, about 82%, happened on undesignated public forests and private lands rather than protected areas. Indigenous territories experienced comparatively less deforestation, highlighting the role that land governance plays in fire prevention.
Fire risk in the Amazon is highest along the southern and eastern edges of the forest, where deforestation frontiers meet seasonal drought. As the climate warms and dry seasons lengthen, previously cleared areas become more susceptible to repeated burning, creating a feedback loop that degrades forest faster than deforestation alone.
Western United States and Canada
The western half of North America, from British Columbia down through California, has become one of the most visible wildfire zones in the world. Hot summers, prolonged droughts, and decades of fire suppression that allowed fuel to accumulate in forests have combined to produce increasingly destructive fire seasons. California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Montana regularly see large fires between May and October, often driven by dry wind events that push flames rapidly through communities.
Canada’s boreal and western provinces, particularly British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories, have experienced record-breaking seasons in recent years. The 2023 Canadian season burned roughly 15 million hectares, an area larger than Greece.
How Climate Change Is Shifting the Map
Global wildfires generated approximately 2,170 megatonnes of carbon emissions in 2023. That carbon feeds back into the atmosphere, contributing to further warming in a cycle that fire scientists find increasingly difficult to interrupt.
A UN Environment Programme report projects that extreme wildfire events will increase by up to 14% by 2030, 30% by 2050, and 50% by the end of the century. These increases will not be evenly distributed. Regions that already burn frequently, like boreal forests and Mediterranean landscapes, will see longer and more intense fire seasons. But fires are also pushing into areas that historically burned rarely, including Arctic tundra, tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia, and parts of northern Europe. The global wildfire map is not static. It is expanding.