Tree Loss from Fires Peaks Globally in 2024, India Among Most Prone

Global fire-related tree cover loss reached an all-time high in 2024, with fires in tropical primary forests burning 370% more area than in 2023, fuelling rising carbon emissions and driving biodiversity loss.

According to The 2025 state of the climate report published in the journal BioScience on October 30, the total global tree cover loss was estimated at 29.6 million hectares (Mha) in 2024, the second highest on record and 4.7% higher than in 2023. The report attributed the surge in fire-related losses to climate change and El Niño conditions.

“The losses within tropical primary forest were particularly large in 2024, with fire-related losses reaching a record high of 3.2 Mha, compared with just 0.69 Mha in 2023—a 370% increase,” the report stated.

The fires also caused severe biodiversity and ecosystem losses, with the destruction of tropical primary forests in 2024 alone emitting nearly 3.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2)  equivalent, which is around 8% of all human-induced emissions that year.

Wildfires also have immediate public health consequences, with smoke exposure linked to increased morbidity and mortality, it added.

State of Forest Fires in India

The Forest Survey of India (FSI) website stated that more than 36% of India’s forest cover has been estimated to be prone to frequent forest fires. While about 4 % of the country’s forest cover is extremely prone to fire, another 6% of forest cover is found to be very highly fire prone (ISFR 2019).

In addition, the FSI website mentioned that large areas of forests are affected by fires of varying intensity and extent every year. Based on the forest inventory records, 54.40% of forests in India are exposed to occasional fires, 7.49% to moderately frequent fires and 2.40% to high incidence levels while 35.71% of India’s forests have not yet been exposed to fires of any real significance. Precious forest resources including carbon locked in the biomass is lost due to forest fires every year, which adversely impact the flow of goods and services from forests.

According to a 2025 World Resources Institute report (WRI), forest fires are becoming more widespread and destructive around the globe. Citing the data from researchers at the University of Maryland WRI further revealed that forest fires now burn more than twice as much tree cover each year as they did two decades ago.

Experts attribute climate change as one of the major reasons behind increasing fire activity. The WRI report predicted that extreme heat waves are expected to become even more frequent as global temperatures continue to rise.