Both in the United States and around the world, fire seasons in 2025 were relatively light. Yet the loss of lives and property hit historic highs, raising questions about whether acres burned is the best metric to assess devastation caused by wildfires, according to a recent analysis.
In the U.S., acres burned in 2025 were around two-thirds of the 10-year average. Worldwide, it was even lighter.
“The second lowest year in terms of burned area globally in the satellite record going back a quarter century or so,” said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of California, Merced and co-author of the article in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. “But it turns out that it was the costliest year in terms of direct fire impacts.”
The catastrophic Los Angeles fires – the fifth-costliest disaster in world history with estimated losses of some $140 billion – killed 31 people and destroyed thousands of homes. A series of wind-driven wildfires in South Korea in March killed 32 and caused similar devastation. Europe saw 28 deaths and some 120,000 evacuations stemming from summer fires in Mediterranean countries.
“It's not necessarily the size of the fire that determines the consequences,” Abatzoglou said. “It's where it burns.”
The intensity and conditions of burning – as well as proximity to homes – are metrics that he said can provide a fuller picture of wildfire’s impacts. Total acreage, he argued, is “the easiest thing to measure, it's a scoreboard that we've been looking at for a really long time.”
The article also noted that CO2 emissions from wildfires in Canada’s boreal forests have been extraordinary, with the last three years’ total exceeding the combined emissions of the preceding 15 years.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
