However, in terms of financial cost, the damage was huge.
This is not to say that the financial cost should take away from the 90 fatalities and 300,000 evacuations globally.
Moreover, the estimated financial losses do not include indirect losses, such as missed workdays, business closures, and increased pressure on health care systems.
This means the blazes can be more devastating to human life and lead to greater financial losses.
For 2026, key environmental indicators, such as high spring temperatures and widespread drought, are giving experts cause for concern in the lead-up to wildfire season.
Wildfires have worsened worldwide in recent years, as global warming and other factors exacerbate the phenomenon. While 2025 wildfires surprisingly burned fewer acres than in previous years, they were the costliest on record. In addition, just because wildfires destroyed less land last year doesn’t mean this will be the case in 2026, which is already presenting the conditions for a more destructive wildfire season.
The 2025 wildfires engulfed the third-smallest area in square miles since 2002, after 2018 and 2022, burning 384 million hectares. However, in terms of financial cost, the damage was huge. In fact, the 2025 wildfires had the costliest financial toll in recorded wildfire history, accounting for 38 percent of all insured losses from natural hazards, according to a study published in June. This is not to say that the financial cost should take away from the 90 fatalities and 300,000 evacuations globally.
While the wildfires may have been smaller in scale, changes in conditions in recent years have made some of these smaller blazes far more intense than in previous years. Higher temperatures, coupled with dense volumes of dry, flammable vegetation, have increased the risk of small blazes rapidly developing into mega-fires.
The Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles became among the most destructive fires in California’s history, with 200,000 people forced to evacuate and around 18,000 structures destroyed. The state also registered at least 31 deaths during the fires, although experts suggest this figure could be much higher when including those who died from indirect causes, such as smoke inhalation.
In addition to the devastation, the LA fires were the fifth-most costly natural disaster in history in terms of insured losses. Losses totalled an estimated $140 billion, of which $40 billion were insured. Climate change in the western United States has been blamed for the twofold increase in large fires and extent of burned area over the past four decades, according to a 2016 study.
Widespread wildfires were also seen in South Korea, Europe, and Canada last year, burning through 250,000, 2.5 million, and 22 million acres, respectively. South Korea’s wildfire last year was the deadliest to date, killing 32 people. Meanwhile, in Europe, heat and drought led to fires that killed at least 28 people and displaced over 120,000 across the Mediterranean, according to recent studies. The full extent of the economic damage in these regions is still unknown.
The location of these fires contributed to the high cost of the damage, as several occurred in densely populated, highly developed areas worldwide. Moreover, the estimated financial losses do not include indirect losses, such as missed workdays, business closures, and increased pressure on health care systems. In addition, the total cost is unclear, as insurers rarely share actual loss figures.
Matthew Jones, a physical geographer at the University of East Anglia who led the June study, said, “Not all fires are equal.” Jones believes that the devastating costs of the 2025 wildfires are unsurprising. He explained, “It feels like this should be shocking, but the way things have trended, this is totally in line with recent fire activity,” adding that it may even be emblematic of the new normal for fire. This should give us all major cause for concern.
The main concerns around wildfires have shifted in recent years as the blazes have adapted. The area burned has been shrinking. This is partially due to the agricultural expansion in Africa’s savannas, which have historically been prone to fire. Previously, researchers and risk management experts were mainly concerned about the size of the fire.
However, over the last decade, wildfires have increasingly occurred in dense urban areas with expensive structures. This means the blazes can be more devastating to human life and lead to greater financial losses. In addition, as opposed to vegetation providing fuel for the fires, houses that are tightly packed together cause these fires to burn hot and fast, a deadly combination. These fires are also extremely difficult to extinguish.
This has forced scientists to consider not just the size of the fire as a risk factor, but the intensity of the blaze, how it spreads, and the direct and indirect costs to society. Tracking that information helps provide a clearer picture of fire risk and how it is evolving.
For 2026, key environmental indicators, such as high spring temperatures and widespread drought, are giving experts cause for concern in the lead-up to wildfire season. In May in the United States, the National Interagency Fire Centre reported that 2.4 million acres had burned in wildfires for which it had created incident reports, almost double the 10-year average for the first five months of the year. Understanding wildfire trends and improving preparedness will be key to tackling blazes moving forward, given their unpredictable nature.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
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