Satellites Reveal ‘Exceptional’ Wildfires Across Americas

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The 2024 wildfire season has brought record-breaking devastation across the Americas, with the western United States and Canada experiencing particularly severe outbreaks.

Satellite data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) highlighted unprecedented wildfire emissions, driven by persistent drought conditions and a warming climate.

In the western U.S., the second half of the year brought significant wildfire activity, including the Park Fire in California, now ranked among the four largest in the state's history, according to Cal Fire.

The analysis from CAMS showed California recorded its highest ever carbon emissions in July as the Park Fire was raging. Meanwhile, Oregon recorded its highest June to August emissions total as fires blazed across the state.

A firefighter uses a drip torch to burn vegetation while trying to stop the Park Fire from near Mill Creek in Tehama County, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. Both North and South America saw... A firefighter uses a drip torch to burn vegetation while trying to stop the Park Fire from near Mill Creek in Tehama County, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. Both North and South America saw exceptional amounts of wildfires in 2024. More Noah Berger, File/AP Photo Despite these intense episodes, CAMS data showed that the overall U.S. wildfire carbon emissions for 2024 were slightly below the 2003-2023 average.

Nevertheless, the sheer scale of burning—over 8.4 million acres by early December—has outpaced recent years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, highlighting the growing intensity of fire seasons.

Other countries in the Americas were hit hard too, with CAMS describing this year's wildfire activity as "exceptional" in northern and southern regions.

The wildfire season in Canada began with alarming intensity, as large blazes in British Columbia forced the evacuation of thousands in May.

Many fires in the region are believed to have persisted through the winter as "zombie fires," reigniting with higher temperatures and drier conditions in spring.

CAMS recorded "unprecedented" carbon emission levels in British Columbia during May, contributing to Canada's second-highest wildfire carbon emissions ever in the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) dataset, surpassed only by the extraordinary 2023 season.

Fires burned extensively across Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan throughout the summer, with smoke plumes transporting fine particulate matter thousands of miles, even reaching Europe.

Many communities, particularly in Brazil and Bolivia, endured prolonged periods of degraded air quality, with some regions seeing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations above World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

"The wildfires in North and South America were the regions which stood out most in global fire emissions for 2024," Mark Parrington, senior scientist at CAMS, said in a statement.

"The scale of some of the fires were at historical levels, especially in Bolivia, the [Brazilian] Pantanal and parts of the Amazon, and Canadian wildfires were again extreme, although not at the scale of 2023.

"The impacts of all these fires had continental-scale impacts on air quality with high surface concentrations of particulate matter and other pollutants which persisted for several weeks."

Newsweek contacted CAMS via email for further comment.

CAMS scientists point to persistent drought conditions and rising global temperatures as key factors exacerbating wildfire activity. In the U.S., for example, drought conditions across the west created a perfect storm for large-scale fires.

More than a third of Americans experienced some kind of drought conditions last week, according to U.S. drought monitor.

As the Southern Hemisphere now braces for its summer fire season, more extreme wildfires are likely. CAMS is closely monitoring bushfires in Australia, with the service already noting an intensification in the bushfire season across the north of the country in October and November.

Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about wildfires? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.

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