Megafires News

A thick, acrid scent of smoke marks the last summer season in Australia, which has become known as the “black summer.” Between June 2019 and March 2020, a series of…

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at what’s driving the intense fire seasons we’ve seen around the world in recent years, what can we expect from the…

Dung beetle species populations are moving toward collapse in parts of the Brazilian Amazon apparently due to climate change-driven drought, fires, and other human disturbances.

Fire is not natural to Australia, as incomprehensible as that may seem today. When humans first landed on the northern shores it was a very different continent. Most of Australia…

An intensification in fires, coupled with increasing deforestation and worsening climate change, could rapidly shift the Amazon toward being a carbon source by 2050.

The recent fires in Australia bring flashbacks of last August in the Brazilian Amazon, when news of massive blazes also captured the world’s attention (and for many, provoked intense concern…

The devastating wildfires in Australia that have claimed the lives of more than a billion animals, by some estimates, are just one of the effects of global climate change the…

Over the past few days, the Kincade Fire has burned nearly 75,000 acres in Sonoma County, California, forcing 180,000 people to evacuate. Miles away, the Getty Fire burned through more…

The prevailing narrative about the Brazilian Amazon this past summer was that the world’s largest rainforest was burning. A more accurate assessment would be that vast areas that used to…

According to Elle Bowd, a researcher with Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, there have been very few studies about the long-term impacts of disturbances like wildfires…

It was only a tweet, but the U.S. President again this week used an inaccurate statement about forest management to make a broader political point: Forest managers and ecologists have…

The fires closing in on Erika Berenguer’s research site in Brazil’s eastern Amazon were unlike anything she had seen in years working in the forest. Smoke hung heavy the air.…

A 2007 study estimated that with 40% Amazon deforestation a tipping point could be reached, converting forest to savannah. New factors put that tipping point at 20-25%. Deforestation is now at 17%.

Forest fires are no longer driven mainly by deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, with climate change induced drought now taking a major role.

27 percent of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park in Goiás state has burned; flames blazed for 12 days. Arson is suspected, with recent park enlargement a possible motive.

Over the past decade, the United States has experienced increasingly intense wildfire seasons, especially in the west. In California, for instance, there were nearly 7,000 wildfires last year, which collectively…

The High Park Fire in Colorado started on June 9th from a lightening strike and quickly expanded. This image is from June 10th, taken by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)…

New Mexico's biggest fire ever as seen on May 29th from NASA's Aqua satellite. Photo by: NASA. To date, around 250,000 acres (101,000 hectares) of the Gila Forest in New…