Climate change: 'Staggering' rate of global tree losses from fires

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According to a report, around 16 football pitches of trees were lost to forest fires in 2011.

According to data from Global Forest Watch, the amount of tree cover being burned has nearly doubled in the past two decades.

Climate change is one of the main factors in the increase.

Over five million trees were burned in Russia.

Researchers can distinguish between trees lost to fires and those destroyed for agriculture, logging or during intentional burns.

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The area of Portugal was lost in the second worst year for fires on record.

James MacCarthy is an analyst with Global ForestWatch.

It's more than double what it was a couple of decades ago. It is amazing how much fire activity has gone up in a short period of time.

In countries like Canada and Russia, the effects of fire-related losses are felt the most.

The scale of destruction seen in Russia in 2021 was unprecedented.

Russia accounted for more than half of the burned land.

James MacCarthy said that fires are becoming more frequent, more severe and have the potential to release carbon from soils there.

Experts say trees and soils are important in tackling climate change because they store carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.

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Climate change is thought to be a key driver of these fires, with rising temperatures creating the dry conditions in which more trees burn.

The northern regions of the world are getting hotter.

The increase in fire losses in Russia was due to the long hot summers that experts believe would have been impossible without human-caused warming.

According to Dr Doug Morton, the chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Nasa, climate change is increasing the risk of bigger fires.

There is a lot of fuel to burn in forests and woodlands.

There are more fires in other parts of the world because of the impact of deforesting.

In the Brazilian Amazon, which recently saw the number of trees felled rise to a six year high, the losses due to agricultural clearing and logging are having a knock on effect.

A lot of the evapotranspiration that helps keep temperatures low and more humid is removed by deforestation.

Image source, Getty Images

Cutting down the forests is making them more prone to fires.

Many of the trees that burn down will grow back over a period of 100 years or so, but there are significant associated impacts of these losses on the environment.

According to the UN, the outlook for forest fires is bad. Extreme fires are predicted to increase by 50% by the end of the century.

Scientists say that deep cuts in global carbon emissions are needed to address this problem.

The leaders of the climate change conference in Glasgow pledged to end the practice of depredation, but they need to keep their word.

More attention is needed to prevent forest fires, rather than fighting them.

Less than 1% of national fire budgets are used to prepare and plan for fires.

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