Articles | Volume 18, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-8037-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-8037-2026
Data description article
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11 Nov 2026
Data description article | Highlight paper |  | 11 Nov 2026

State of Wildfires 2025–2026

Chantelle A. Burton, Francesca Di Giuseppe, Matthew W. Jones, Douglas I. Kelley, Maria L. F. Barbosa, Joe McNorton, Bob Potts, Carlota Segura-Garcia, John T. Abatzoglou, Iulian Alin Rosu, Niels Andela, Liana O. Anderson, Sally Archibald, Esther Brambleby, Emilio Chuvieco, Andrew Ciavarella, Hamish Clarke, Francisco de la Barrera, Carlos M. Di Bella, Enza Di Tomaso, Kebonye Dintwe, Tim S. Doherty, Victoria M. Donovan, Jonathan M. Eden, Paulo M. Fernandes, Lukas Fiedler, Louis Giglio, Olivia Haas, Douglas S. Hamilton, Stijn Hantson, Sarah Harris, Andrew J. Hartley, Theo Keeping, Crystal A. Kolden, Jean-Luc Kouassi, Elena Kukavskaya, Seppe Lampe, Zhongwei Liu, Guilherme Mataveli, Sarah Meier, Duarte Oom, Mark Parrington, Yuquan Qu, Victor Resco de Dios, Julien Ruffault, Mojtaba Sadegh, Cristina Santín, Fernando Sedano, Jacquelyn K. Shuman, Patrícia S. Silva, Fiona R. Spuler, Carmen B. Steinmann, Veerachai Tanpipat, Miguel Ángel Torres-Vazquez, Marco Turco, Guido R. van der Werf, Dave van Wees, Sander Veraverbeke, Jakob B. Wessel, and Bo Zheng

Data sets

Regional Summaries of Burned Area, Fire Emissions, and Individual Fire Characteristics for National, Administrative and Biogeographical Regions M. W. Jones et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21262381

Updates to the Global Fire Atlas of individual fire size, duration, speed and direction N. Andela and M. W. Jones https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21262381

Population Exposure to Wildfire data S. Teymoor Seydi et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20787866

Physical Asset Exposure to Wildfire data are available at Steinmann C. B. Steinmann et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21332621

Daily mean PM2.5 surface concentrations aggregated by Continent, Biome, Country, and Administrative Region data E. Di Tomaso et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21277053

Protected Areas Exposure to Fire data À. Cunill Camprubí et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20764120

Forest Carbon Project Exposure to Fire data N. Andela et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21430353

Anomalies in Extreme Fire Weather Days by Continent, Biome, Country, and Administrative Region M. Turco et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20757872

Data for "Large-scale modelled impacts of the 2025 Canadian wildfires" by Rosu et al. I.-A. Rosu et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20523005

ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present J. Muñoz Sabater https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac

Observation and ERA5-Land derived 9 km global daily fire fuel characteristics since 2003 European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) https://doi.org/10.24381/378d1497

FWI calculated from HadGEM3-A and Present-Day Attribution using HadGEM3-A large ensemble data A. Hartley et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21379381

State of Wildfires 2025-26: Present-Day Attribution and Future Projections of Focal Events Using FWI7X Z. Liu and J. Eden https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20827512

HadGEM3-A historical data Met Office http://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/99b29b4bfeae470599fb96243e90cde3

WWA Attribution and Future Projection of Focal Events Using FWI95 data T. Keeping https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21374687

State of Wildfires 2025-26: Midwestern Canadian Shield Forests Burned Area Attribution and Projections D. Kelley et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21468717

State of Wildfires 2025-26: Northwest Iberia Burned Area Attribution and Projections D. Kelley et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21458571

State of Wildfires 2025-26: Chilean Temperate Forests and Matorral Burned Area Attribution and Projections D. Kelley et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21459106

JULES-ES bias adjustment data J. Wessel and F. Spuler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21397548

BuRNN: A Data-Driven Fire Model S. Lampe https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17778519

BuRNN (v1.0): a data-driven fire model S. Lampe et al. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-955-2026

Wildfires on a changing planet O. Haas et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-68176-4

Model code and software

State of Wildfires 2025-26: Present-Day Attribution and Future Projections of Focal Events Using FWI7X Z. Liu and J. Eden https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20827512

State of Wildfires 2025-26: WWA Attribution and Future Projection of Focal Events Using FWI95 T. Keeping https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21374687

douglask3/State_of_Wildfires_report: State of Wildfires 2025-26: FWI attribution model (Versions Sow2526_v0.1) C. Burton et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21499355

Data for "Large-scale modelled impacts of the 2025 Canadian wildfires" by Rosu et al. I.-A. Rosu et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20523005

State-of-Wildfires_CLIMADA Carmen B. Steinmann https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21393395

State of Wildfires 2025-26: ConFLAME (Versions SoW2526_v0.1) D. Kelley et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21473591

VUB-HYDR/BuRNN: Version 1.1 (Version v1.1) S. Lampe https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17834206

BuRNN (v1.0): a data-driven fire model S. Lampe et al. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-955-2026

Wildfires on a changing planet O. Haas et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-68176-4

Set up the models O. Haas https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24764583

Run models O. Haas https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24764577

Results scripts O. Haas https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24764571

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Editorial statement
State of Wildfires 2025–2026: A Quiet Global Fire Year, Devastating Regional Extremes Despite global burned area and fire carbon emissions falling 18% and 20–31% below historical averages, respectively, devastating wildfire extremes affected Canada, Europe, and South America. The State of Wildfires 2025–2026 report combines satellite observations, climate attribution, and future projections to reveal how climate change amplifies regional wildfire risks, providing critical insights for preparedness, adaptation, and mitigation.
Short summary
The third State of Wildfires report examines extreme wildfire events from 2025 to early 2026. It analyses key regional events in Midwestern Canadian Shield Forests, Northwest Iberia, and Chilean Temperate Forests and Matorral, assessing their impacts, drivers, and attributing them to climate change. Climate change greatly increased the likelihood of these fires, and without strong mitigation, such events will become more frequent.
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