A group of Canadian researchers, wildfire practitioners, Indigenous Firekeepers, and journalists has created a free, comprehensive resource to strengthen wildfire reporting.
Simon Fraser University made the “Covering Wildfire” toolkit as part of its Mitigating Wildfire Initiative, which was created to prevent catastrophic wildfires by transforming how Canada works with fire, according to the initiative’s website. The initiative specifically seeks to change the overwhelming flow of funding from suppression toward prevention.
The toolkit focuses on seven specific pathways for how journalists and media outlets can change their coverage of wildfires to reflect the realities and challenges that the natural phenomenon poses, including covering wildfire as a year-round story, highlighting resilient solutions, and improving collaboration between the media and wildfire agencies.
“The toolkit is a collective, co-created offering from the 50 folks who gathered at the bootcamp for other journalists across the nation, aiming to support them in telling this critically important story,” university officials said on the institution’s website.
Mitigating Wildfire Initiative Director Yolanda Clatworthy first unveiled the toolkit in June at a workshop in Calgary, where she told Wildfire Today it had been well-received. Both fire professionals and journalists shared how helpful it would be for their workflows, as well as for increasing trust and responsiveness within their communities. The toolkit was also presented at an interactive session at the IAWF international Wildfire Summit in Calgary in October 2025, and it has begun to help agencies and journalists outside of Canada as well.
“Folks in San Francisco at Red Sky Summit were also asking about it and saying how helpful it would be in an American context as well — a testament to the expanded reach and how much co-created outputs are needed,” Clatworthy told Wildfire Today.
A group of 74 Canadian Arduous Firefighters and Incident Management Teams from Alberta Wildfire and British Columbia Wildfire Service have just arrived in Victoria, Australia, to help fight ongoing bushfires across the state.
These crews are a part of 1300 interstate and international firefighters and IMT personnel brought in to support local crews in a week that has seen record breaking heat across southern Australia.
Victorian Emergency Management Commissioner Tim Wiebusch said there were multiple out-of-control bushfires burning across Victoria, including the Carlisle River fire in the Otways and the Walwa and Dargo fires in the state’s north-east.
Although the extreme temperatures had slightly eased in southern districts – along with some of the fire activity – the northern parts of the state and into New South Wales were still facing persistent heat. So far this bushfire season, more than 400,000 hectares of land has been affected.
The number of people on deployment has fluctuated over the days, but as of earlier this week 342 interstate support personnel were in Victoria in addition to the internationals:
38 from Western Australia
31 from Australian Capital Territory
127 from New South Wales
34 from Northern Territory
12 from Queensland
100 from South Australia
Wiebusch said the Canadians would stay for a month “bringing a very welcomed boost in capacity to allow us to rotate and rest local teams.”
“The Canadians will help manage and fight remote fires in the Wonnangatta and the Wabba Wilderness in regional Victoria. Amazing commitment to travel significant distance and be away from family and friends for this long period…We can’t thank you enough.”
The Canadian teams will join New Zealand crews already on these fires.
Canadian deployment to fires in Victoria, Australia, January 2026.
Alberta Wildfire has deployed 37 personnel, including 20 firefighters and 17 wildfire management specialists, to Australia for 30 days to support wildfire response efforts.
Alberta, British Columbia and Australia share a long-standing partnership in fighting wildfires, with 1410 firefighters and support staff deployed to Canada in the last three years.
This map shows the incredible, and in some cases unprecedented, temperatures in southern Australia on Tuesday 27 January.
Extreme temperatures across southern Australia, January 2026. Source: Bureau of Meteorology.
Parts of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia all exceeded 48°C /118F, which is rare for these states, even during severe summer heatwaves.
Significant, long standing temperature records were broken on Tuesday, highlighting just how far from ‘typical summer weather’ these temperatures were:
• Walpeup and Hopetoun both reached 48.9ºC yesterday, which was Victoria’s hottest temperature since observations began.
• New South Wales’s second hottest temperature on record was tied when Pooncarie reported 49.7ºC/121.7F.
• South Australia’s fourth hottest temperature on record was reached in Renmark, as it reached 49.6ºC/121.3F.
Thermal data acquired by the Copernicus EU Sentinel‑3 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer highlight the severity of the ongoing heatwave across Australia, with extreme land surface temperatures (LST) detected over large regions.
In Willcania and Broken Hill, recorded land surface temperatures ranged between 58 and 60 °C (136-140F), whereas Adelaide appeared cooler, with temperatures of 45–48 °C, likely due to its proximity to the sea.
Australia’s record heatwave as seen from space, January 2026. Source: European Space Agency.
Credits: Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA
The leading cause of wildfire ignitions on public lands in recent decades has been lightning, but new research shows humans may become the predominant cause of wildfires thanks to a recently enacted law allowing more recreational shooting.
Research published by Boise State University and the United States Department of Agriculture delved into fire reports for the Bureau of Land Management’s National Conservation Lands from 1992 to 2020 and found that 73% of fire ignitions were natural-caused, while human ignitions were only 27%. That is nearly the opposite of national trends, where human-caused ignitions account for 84% of all ignitions.
But one National Conservation Area, Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey in Idaho, was the opposite. This conservation area had 68% of its wildfire ignitions caused by humans. This public land also made up 25% of all ignitions on all of the Bureau’s National Conservation Lands between 1992 and 2020.
Total count of human (excluding military-related) and natural ignitions documented in each NCL unit between 1992 and 2020. MONE is the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey (MONE) National Conservation Area in Idaho, US.
The difference between Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey and other Bureau lands is that Morley Nelson has a year-round live-fire shooting area managed by the Idaho Army National Guard, meaning shooting directly contributes to the prevalence of fires on the public land.
All other public lands may soon go from having minimal human-caused ignitions to Morley Nelson’s numbers because of a recently enacted law. The Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences Act, signed into law in January 2025, requires the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service to establish at least one shooting range in their respective districts, expand motorized access, and increase campground usage.
Boise State University Environment Researcher Meg Dolman told Wildfire Today that she believes the act would increase the risk of human-caused wildfires due to the increased recreational shooting, human presence, and general activity on public lands. But she said the increased risk could be offset through preventative measures.
“Our research emphasizes that further efforts are needed to reduce wildfire risk from recreational shooting, through improving educational messaging, or encouraging recreational shooters to carry fire suppression tools and be prepared to extinguish any fires that may result from their activities,” Dolman said. “Our paper also highlights the need for safe fire-proof bullets for use in firearms and shooting ranges, especially in arid, fire-prone areas like the sagebrush steppe. Ultimately, our research encourages public land agencies to address human-caused ignitions more proactively and as a matter of urgency, especially those caused by recreational shooting.”
This premier event convenes air quality specialists, fire professionals, health scientists, policymakers, and technology innovators to explore the complex challenges and emerging solutions surrounding wildland and agricultural smoke.
As a hybrid event, all presentations will be live-streamed and taped for later playback.
From Maryland (2013) to Long Beach (2016) to a fully virtual format in 2020, the International Smoke Symposium continues to evolve—uniting global voices and advancing the science and practice of smoke management. The 2026 symposium will be held in person at the new Leigh Perkins Conservation Education Center in Tallahassee, Florida.
What to Expect:
• Cutting-edge research on smoke tracking, modelling and health impacts.
• Strategies for field management, communication and response.
• Insights into social, ecological and economic implications.
• Training opportunities for operational professionals.
• A showcase of innovative tools and technologies.
Join for the 2026 International Smoke Symposium ISS4, Tallahassee, Florida, March 23-27, 2026. In person and online.
Science is showing how climate change is increasing catastrophic wildfires around the world, but a new study claims we still lack the basic information to make more precise conclusions about fire and its future impacts.
Warming, on its own, may not increase the overall fire risk as heat is only one of the many influences on fire. And as impressive as the climate models may be, the real work is still to be done on using the model outputs to make real-life decisions that affect our daily lives.
We know a lot about fire. And we know a lot about climate. But there is so much more to the puzzle. A group of scientists from around the globe have collaborated on a paper that is a guide for piecing the puzzle together – from the published papers and the modelling, to creating tangible, useful projections on future wildfires.
The trend in the number of journal articles published on the topic of climate change and landscape fire. Graphic: Francesca Di Giuseppe
“It may seem obvious that climate change is making bushfires worse, but the truth is more complicated,” he explains.
Clarke led the global team of researchers to develop a guide to looking at climate change impacts on wildfires and they conclude that it is no longer going to be sufficient to just look at what wildfire researchers are saying.
“It’s clear it will take more than just experts from one field to accurately project what’s to come. Some of the disciplines we point to may be obvious – atmospheric physics, botany, ecology – but it’s also about other areas like health and medical sciences, economics and paleo science.
“More than this, it’s the knowledge that lies outside academia too, like emergency response agencies, land management agencies, Indigenous knowledge, and communities with lived experience of fire.”
The paper attempts to pull the fragmented pieces of knowledge together.
“The solution isn’t just collecting more and more. We need specialists who can join dots, summarise, synthesise, curate, find and make meaning in iterative dialogue with others. We can’t leave this task to AI, although computers can certainly help.”
It is difficult to keep up with all the published articles on wildfires and climate change.
Top 20 countries with the most journal articles published on the topic of climate change and landscape fire. Graphic: Francesca Di Giuseppe
Readers can save themselves the effort of reading every paper on fire and climate change and check out this paper. “We try to guide the reader through some of the main currents in the scientific literature, with a focus on what we need to do to develop better assessments of climate change impacts on fire.”
Assoc Prof Clarke’s paper was co-authored by Francesca Di Giuseppe from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast UK, Lynn Johnston from Natural Resources Canada, Jennifer Marlon from Yale University, Trent Penman from FLARE Wildfire Research at University of Melbourne, Andy Pittman from ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and Climate Change at University of New South Wales, Guido R van der Werf from Wageningen University Netherlands, and Mike Flannigan from Natural Resource Science Thompson Rivers University Canada.
In 1961, from 20 to 24 January, a series of large, destructive bushfires burned in the forested south-west region of Western Australia.
A subsequent Royal Commission investigated causes and made recommendations to enhance controlled burning that had profound implications, not only in the tall eucalypts of the south-west WA, but across Australia for many years.
Guest writer John O’Donnell looks back on the anniversary of the 1961 fires and sees lessons for today.
The 1961 south west Western Australian bushfires provided a classic, rare case study where the recommendations of a Royal Commission and lessons learnt by firefighters were taken seriously by the government, and land and fire management agencies, in particular the Western Australian Forests.
Over time, virtually all of the and recommendations and lessons learnt were implemented. This resulted in significant decline in the annual area burnt by bushfires, and consequent bushfire losses.
Of all the major bushfires in Australia’s history, the author believes none has left such a deep and lasting legacy as the 1961 bushfires in Western Australia. They were not the deadliest fires Australia has seen but they were among the most influential. The 1961 Dwellingup fire in particular became an important case study for how bushfire was understood, managed, and mitigated in the decades that followed.
Sadly, in many bushfires in Australia, the bushfire mitigation and suppression lessons are not adequately captured nor retained over long periods.
Dwellingup, Western Australia, 1961.
A defining moment in fire management
The 1961 bushfires swept through vast tracts of forest in Western Australia, igniting between January and March across Dwellingup, Pemberton, the Shannon River region, and Augusta-Margaret River. The fires razed towns like Dwellingup and Karridale, destroyed 160 buildings, and caused an estimated $35 million in damages. Remarkably, no lives were lost – a testament to the skill and bravery of firefighters and the resilience of local communities.
What set these fires apart was not just their scale but the response they triggered. The Western Australian government convened a Royal Commission, led by Forester G.J. Rodger, to investigate the causes and recommend reforms. The inquiry’s 27 recommendations were not only logical but transformative, laying the foundation for a new era in bushfire management.
Prior to 1961, prescribed burning in Western Australia was limited and largely ineffective. Forest management focused on narrow buffer zones around assets, allowing fuel loads to accumulate dangerously across vast areas. Technical limitations-poor weather forecasting, lack of trained personnel, and rudimentary fire behaviour knowledge hampered efforts to implement broader burning strategies.
The result was a tinderbox. When lightning ignited multiple fires under extreme weather conditions, suppression efforts were quickly overwhelmed. Smoke rendered tower-based detection systems useless, and outdated equipment failed under pressure. The fires spread rapidly, culminating in the destruction of Dwellingup.
Capturing the 1961 bushfire teaching event and lessons
The Royal Commission’s findings resulted a comprehensive overhaul of fire management in Western Australia. Key reforms included:
Enhanced Equipment and Communication: Investment in modern radios, improved tanker trucks, and standardized pumper units.
Fire Behaviour Research: A dedicated program to understand fire dynamics and develop safer prescribed burning techniques.
Prescribed Burning Programs: Systematic fuel reduction became central to fire mitigation, with rotational burning schedules tailored to forest types.
Spotter Aircraft: Replacing unreliable tower systems, aerial detection improved response times and fire mapping.
Interagency Cooperation: Agreements between government bodies, local councils, and volunteer brigades fostered unified fire strategies.
These reforms were not merely theoretical. They were operationalized, tested, and refined over decades, resulting in a dramatic decline in bushfire extent and severity across the region.
Reinforcement of 1961 bushfire teaching and lesson capture in 1978 and 2023
The effectiveness of the 1961 reforms was reaffirmed in subsequent fire events. In December 1978, 27 fires ignited over one weekend due to lightning strikes. Thanks to regular fuel reduction and improved detection, crews contained all fires swiftly – most using only hand tools and knapsack sprays.
Similarly, in November 2023, 26 fires erupted south-east of Perth. Fuel-age mapping revealed that 20 of these were burning in areas treated within the last four years. Firefighters prioritized the remaining six, successfully containing them with minimal damage. These case studies underscore the critical role of fuel management in wildfire control.
The role of prescribed burning and fire systems
Prescribed burning emerged as a critical component of the Western Australia’s fire strategy. Research showed that under severe weather, fuel older than five years in jarrah forests and seven years in karri forests could carry uncontrollable crown fires. Burns less than a year old could halt fire runs, while areas with fuel less than five years old allowed for effective suppression.
To maintain safe fuel levels-below 8 tonnes per hectare in jarrah and 15 tonnes in karri – rotational burning schedules were implemented. These were informed by ongoing studies into fuel accumulation, fire intensity, and ecological impacts. Aerial burning techniques, pioneered jointly by the Forests Department and CSIRO, further enhanced efficiency and coverage.
Prescribed burning was just one component of a holistic fire management system. Other innovations included:
VHF/UHF Radio Systems: Replacing HF radios, these systems improved reliability under adverse conditions.
Structured Training and Command Systems: Ensuring readiness and coordination during emergencies.
Wildfire Threat Analysis: Prioritizing protection of high-value areas through strategic buffers and integrated planning.
Together, and with other measures, these measures created a robust framework that protected lives, property, and ecosystems for decades.
A warning from the past
Since the early 1990s, prescribed burning rates have dropped, leading to increased bushfire extent. Peet and Williamson (2025) warn that the forest estate now resembles its pre-1961 condition-dense, fuel-laden, and vulnerable.
This graph from the Bushfire Front (below) starkly illustrates this trend: as prescribed burning decreased, wildfire area has increased. Without ongoing commitment to fuel reduction and fire science, the hard-won gains of the past risk being undone.
Conclusions
The 1961 Dwellingup fire was a tragedy, but it was also a turning point. It taught Australians that suppression alone is insufficient, that science and planning are essential, and that communities must be prepared with a “Plan B.” It demonstrated the power of coordinated response, informed policy, and sustained commitment.
In south-east Australia, it is essential that such a critical lesson and teaching event is examined and all possible lessons captured, including optimised fire mitigation programs.
More than 500 firefighters are battling over two dozen wildfires throughout Chile with no end in sight as weather conditions worsen fire spread, according to National Forest Corporation officials.
Security Minister Luis Cordero on Monday said at least 19 people have died in the fires, while states of emergency and mass evacuations are in place in central and southern portions of the nation, according to CNN reporting. Thousands of residents sifted through the rubble that was once their homes on Monday morning.
National Forest Corporation officials on Monday said at least 25 wildfires are still burning throughout the country. Tankers and aircraft have been mobilized throughout the weekend. Minister of Agriculture Ignacia Fernández fires are expected to worsen due to forecast weather conditions.
“The situation in the region is worrying,” Fernández said in a press release on Monday. “The weather conditions today are going to be complicated and other fires could eventually break out … We will continue to reinforce calls for a complete halt to agricultural work during the hottest hours in those municipalities under a red alert. However, it is extremely important to appeal to the responsibility and awareness of each and every citizen to prevent new outbreaks of fire.”
Officials also floated possible curfews on Monday to maintain public order as officials begin recovery efforts.
“We are not ruling out any of the powers that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have to maintain public order and to assist in the region’s recovery,” Undersecretary of Defense Ricardo Montero said. “For now, our assessment is that it is not necessary, and we are using other forms of equipment, presence, and, especially, coordination among all the armed forces and the police.”
Officials were warning the country’s residents about the potential for widespread wildfires last Thursday as forecasters predicted temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit, strong winds of up to 25 mph, and low relative humidity. Residents were advised to not use electrical tools or machinery outdoors, to not burn vegetation, and to not throw cigarette butts on the dry ground.
Also in South America, large wildfires have been ongoing in Argentine Patagonia since early January 2026, impacting vast areas of native forest and shrubland. According to the local authorities, the fires spread across the provinces of Chubut, Santa Cruz and Neuquén, burning over 15,000 hectares of land and prompting the evacuation of over 3,000 residents and tourists from affected areas.
This image (below), acquired on 11 January 2026 by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites, focuses on an active fire in the province of Chubut. Healthy vegetation appears in green, while burned areas are visible as dark brown and reddish patches. Bare soil is shown in cream tones and smoke plumes are visible drifting eastwards.
Argentina wildfires, January 2026. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery
The costliest wildfire event of the year – the January fires in and around Los Angeles that directly claimed the lives of 30 people – burnt a relatively small 23,000 hectares (56,000 acres) but caused at least USD 53 billion in damages.
Wildfires burned through 390 million hectares (964 million acres) in 2025 – equivalent to 92% of the European Union’s land area.
In 2025 the total cost of damages caused by all types of natural hazards has been calculated by Munich Re at USD 224 billion, of which USD 108 billion was insured.
In a clear demonstration of the disparity between cost of damages and other measurable impacts, the year’s second most expensive disaster, Myanmar’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake in March, had damages of around USD 12 billion; however its human cost was more than 4500 lives, with thousands more injured.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has published the figures to show how the global reinsurance industry’s balance sheet forms a basis for how disasters are discussed, compared, and remembered. But while these numbers make the news cycle – and draw much-needed attention to rising disaster risks – they capture only part of the story.
The UNDRR notes that beyond the insured damage to homes and businesses lies a far larger set of costs – borne by communities, ecosystems, health systems, and future development – that rarely appear on balance sheets. These invisible costs affect recovery long after the flames are extinguished, and determine whether societies emerge more resilient or more vulnerable to the next shock.
Wildfires rank among the most economically destructive hazards globally, and the costs are rising. Between 2014 and 2023, wildfires caused an estimated USD 106 billion in economic losses and USD 74 billion in insured losses globally – far exceeding losses in the previous decade, as found by the 2025 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR 2025). The United States accounts for most of these impacts, with nine of the ten most expensive wildfire events since 1970 occurring in the US, even before accounting for the January 2025 California wildfires, GAR 2025 shows.
Australia recorded one of the largest proportions of land affected by wildfires during 2025. But unlike many other fire-affected regions, Australia benefits from long-standing, high-quality loss data, allowing wildfire impacts to be assessed over decades rather than inferred from isolated events. The report notes this as “area lost” but much of the fire in Australia is in the northern savannah regions that benefit from regular, low-intensity fires.
(The following graphics show the Percentage of wildfire burn in 2025, and the Total hectares burnt. Hover over the graphic for more details.)
The UNDRR concludes that global wildfire costs appear concentrated where assets are high value and insured – which is almost certainly not where impacts are greatest.
From the perspective of insurers and reinsurers – the institutions that offer insurance to insurance companies to cover megalosses – 2025 stands out as a year of exceptional wildfire losses.
GAR 2025 calculated that total losses from those fires – including insured, uninsured and long-term indirect costs – are even higher, and likely to exceed USD 250 billion, making it among the most expensive disasters on record.
But most expensive doesn’t necessarily mean most destructive. What insured loss figures obscure is the duration and breadth of wildfire impacts.
“Even when data exists, it is often focused on direct impacts and not enough on indirect impacts. This is a major gap in how disaster risk is understood,” according to Kamal Kishore, head of UNDRR.
US wildland fire agencies would be required to respond to wildfires within 30 minutes and deploy within three hours if the Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act is signed into law.
The mandated response time was described as a “commonsense” measure by Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany from Wisconsin, who is also the Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, at the committee’s hearing on the act on Wednesday afternoon.
“Many would be shocked to learn that no such standardized response time exists across federal agencies right now,” Tiffany said. “Instead, decisions about initial attack are left up to subjective factors that vary across agencies, regions, and individuals. Aggressive initial attacks are critical to preventing fires from developing into large, uncontrollable blazes that spread devastation.”
United States Forest Service Deputy Chief John Crockett said the Service supports the intent of the law and shares the goal of improving federal response to wildfires as a witness at Wednesday’s hearing. He also said the Service plans to have 11,300 firefighters for the 2026 wildfire season, which some lawmakers worry would be extreme due to low amounts of snowpack across the West.
But the nation’s current wildland fire workforce isn’t strong enough to meet the new 30-minute response standard, according to wildland firefighter advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. The group said multiple systemic issues need to first be addressed before Congress sets sweeping response-time mandates.
“Response standards must be grounded in reality—and paired with investments in a sustainable wildfire workforce,” the group said in a social media post. “The biggest constraint in federal wildfire response today isn’t policy—it’s people. Chronic staffing shortages, high vacancy rates, and retention challenges already strain resources during peak fire season. Terrain, remoteness, detection delays, and aviation limitations further complicate rapid response, especially in remote federal lands.”
January is Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month in the United States. Follow in the footsteps of tens of thousands of US firefighters who are making an impact on firefighter health and safety. Join the NIOSH National Firefighter Registry (NFR) for Cancer.
All US firefighters can join the NFR for Cancer, whether you are paid or volunteer, active or retired, and even if you don’t have cancer. When you join, you will answer questions about your fire service history and help NIOSH fill an important gap in our knowledge about cancer in firefighters.
The more we know about cancer in the US fire service, the more we can do to prevent it.
Take 5 minutes to start your registration at NFR.CDC.gov.
