Forest fire carbon dioxide emissions have surged by 60% globally since 2001, almost tripling in some of the most climate-sensitive northern boreal forests. CO2 emissions in these forests in Eurasia and North America, nearly tripled between 2001 and 2023 with significant increases seen more broadly across the extratropical forests amounting to an additional half billion tons of CO2 per year–the emissions epicenter shifting away from tropical forests towards the extratropics. Increased emissions were linked to rising fire-favorable weather and increased forest growth rates. Both trends were aided by twice as fast warming as the global average in the high northern latitudes. The carbon combustion rate, a measure of fire severity based on carbon amount emitted per unit of area burned, increased by almost 50% across forests globally between 2001 and 2023.
www.uea.ac.uk/about/news/article/global-co2-emissions-from-forest-fires-increase-by-60-per-cent