The 2026 Fire Season Is Already Breaking Records

by Amanda Hawkins May 25, 2026

Before the Northern Hemisphere's summer fire season has even begun, the planet is already on a record-setting pace. From January through April of this year, wildfires burned more than 150 million hectares of land worldwide, about 20% above the previous record, according to a briefing released by World Weather Attribution on May 11, 2026. The fires were not concentrated in any one country or region. They were distributed across continents, driven by a familiar mix of drought, heat, wind, and human ignition, and amplified by a shifting climate.

What happens next depends in part on weather patterns that have not yet locked in. But forecasters now expect a rapid swing into El Niño conditions over the next several months. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) puts the chance of El Niño emerging in May-July 2026 at 82%, rising to 96% through Northern Hemisphere winter, with a roughly 1-in-3 chance of a strong or very strong event by late fall.

What the Numbers Show

The first-four-months totals come from satellite-based burned-area data analyzed by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a research consortium that quantifies how climate change influences extreme weather events. A few of the highlights:

Globally: More than 150 million hectares burned between January and April 2026, 20% above the previous record set in 2020 and roughly double the figure for the same period in 2024, according to the WWA briefing (the Down to Earth coverage notes the four-month total was 50% above the 2012-2025 average for the same window).
Africa: About 85 million hectares burned, 23% higher than the previous record of 69 million hectares, the highest level since 2012. The burned area spanned a broad band from Gambia and Senegal across to Sudan and South Sudan. Much of the activity was driven by rapid swings between unusually wet and unusually dry conditions, which leave dense vegetation behind to dry out and ignite.
Asia: Roughly 44 million hectares burned, nearly 40% above the previous record year of 2014 (32 million hectares). India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and parts of southern China were among the hardest hit.
United States: The U.S. burned area through April was close to the highest on record, according to NOAA and the National Interagency Fire Center. More than a million acres burned in the Great Plains, mainly in Nebraska, during a record-warm March.
Southern Hemisphere: The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) tracked an unusually intense January in Australia's state of Victoria (about 400,000 hectares burned, 900 buildings damaged or destroyed) and the largest January carbon emissions on record in Argentina's Chubut province.

For context, 150 million hectares is roughly the size of Mongolia, or about 1.5 times the combined area of California, Texas, and Florida. And these numbers do not yet include the typical heart of the Northern Hemisphere fire season, which runs from June through October in most years.

Why Air Quality Is the Story Beyond the Flames

Wildfires affect more than the land they burn. The smoke they release contains fine particulate matter (PM2.5), gases, and a complex mix of pollutants that can travel thousands of miles from the source. A fire in Siberia can darken skies in Alaska. A fire in Quebec can push air quality alerts into the southeastern United States. A fire in Indonesia can blanket Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand for weeks.

When the burned area expands and the fires get hotter, the air quality consequences extend well beyond the immediate fire zone. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency links PM2.5 exposure to heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, and premature death in people with heart or lung disease. The World Health Organization estimates that ambient air pollution causes roughly 4.2 million premature deaths globally each year, with fine particulate matter the main contributor.

Smoke from one country becomes another country's air quality emergency.

What's Driving the 2026 Surge

A handful of overlapping factors are pushing this year's totals so high:

Climate-driven extremes. Warmer average temperatures and longer dry seasons mean more fuel, more flammable fuel, and longer fire weather windows. April 2026 was the world's fourth-warmest April on record, and the January-April global average was the fifth-warmest on record. The Arctic and boreal regions are warming several times faster than the global average, which is why Siberian, Canadian, and Alaskan fire seasons have been intensifying for over a decade.
Whiplash precipitation. Many of the regions burning hardest in 2026 saw extremely wet conditions in 2024 and 2025. That vegetation is now dry, dead, and abundant. WWA researchers point to this rapid swing from wet to dry as a major driver behind Africa's record burned area.
A rapid shift toward El Niño. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center currently shows an "El Niño Watch" with an 82% chance of El Niño conditions emerging in May-July 2026 and 96% chance of continuing into Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27. The WMO's global seasonal outlook projects a strong El Niño (~1.8°C anomaly) by mid-summer, with high model agreement. Past strong El Niño years (1997-98, 2015-16, 2023-24) correlated with severe fire activity in Australia, Indonesia, the Amazon, and parts of North America. The National Interagency Fire Center's May 2026 outlook identifies the rapid transition to El Niño as the main climate driver shaping fire potential through the summer.
Population and ignition pressure. Roughly 85% of U.S. wildfires are human-ignited. As communities expand into the wildland-urban interface, the number of potential ignitions grows alongside them.

What This Means for Where You Live

Smoke crosses borders. The first three months of 2026 saw multiple long-range transport events: smoke from African fires reached South America, smoke from Asian fires reached western North America, and smoke from boreal Russia reached parts of northern Europe.

For most communities, fire season preparation now includes preparing for smoke from fires that are not local. A city with no fire risk of its own can still see PM2.5 spike into unhealthy ranges when wind patterns deliver smoke from a fire hundreds or thousands of miles away.

That is where community air monitoring matters. Government reference stations are sparse and often miles apart. Low-cost sensor networks, like the more than thirty thousand sensors on the PurpleAir map, fill in the gaps with community-level PM2.5 readings updated in real time. When smoke arrives, you can see exactly when it reaches your area, how high concentrations climb, and when it begins to clear.

How to Prepare

Practical steps look different depending on where you live and what resources you have access to. A few principles apply almost everywhere, regardless of country or income level:

Stay aware of the air. Watch for visible signs of smoke: haze, reduced visibility, and the smell of burning. Where community sensor data is available, the PurpleAir map shows real-time PM2.5 readings. Most countries' national meteorological agencies also issue smoke or air quality advisories during fire events.
Reduce time outside on smoky days. This is the single most protective step and it costs nothing. Cut back on outdoor work, exertion, and play, especially for children, older adults, pregnant people, and anyone with asthma, heart disease, or other respiratory conditions.
Keep smoke out of indoor spaces. Close doors and windows during heavy smoke. Where windows do not seal well, damp cloth or rolled fabric can block gaps under doors and along window frames. Gathering household members in a single interior room reduces the volume of air that has to stay clean.
Use whatever filtration is available. Air purifiers and HVAC systems with high-grade filters work best. Where commercial purifiers are not accessible, a box fan paired with a furnace-grade filter is a low-cost alternative that can dramatically lower indoor PM2.5.
Protect those most at risk. Infants, young children, pregnant people, the elderly, and anyone with chronic respiratory or cardiovascular conditions are most vulnerable. Move them away from smoke first, even if it means crowding into the room with the best air.
Watch for compounding smoke sources. In many parts of the world, household cooking with wood, charcoal, or other biomass fuels is already a major source of particle exposure. Wildfire smoke layers on top of that. Cook outdoors or in well-ventilated areas when possible, and shorten cooking time during peak smoke.

The Bigger Picture

Fire seasons are no longer a regional concern. The 2026 numbers are a reminder that decisions made in one country, about energy, land management, and emissions, ripple through the air everyone else breathes. The most resilient response is also the simplest: measure what is in the air, share that information widely, and let people use it to protect themselves and their families.

The fire season has barely started. Knowing what you are breathing is the first step in deciding what to do about it.

PurpleAir Map · Air Quality Monitors · EPA Fire and Smoke Map