The climate crisis is expected to make lightning-sparked wildfires more frequent for decades to come, which could lead to a ripple effect and significantly impact public safety and public health, according to a journal Earth’s Future, published on August 26.
Lightning-induced fires tend to burn in more remote areas which usually grow into larger fires compared to the human-induced fires. That means a trend toward more lightning-caused fires is also probably making wildfires more deadly by producing more wildfire smoke and helping to drive a surge in air quality issues from coast to coast, especially over the past several years.
The study projected an increase in cloud-to-ground lightning days in the mid-21st century (2031–2060), especially in the interior northwestern United States.
Global Impact of Lightning-Induced Wildfires
This trend isn’t just in the US. This year’s fire season has been the worst in European history. Spain’s wildfires were sparked by lightning during dry storms, according to Al Jazeera. In Canada, huge fires this year have burned more than 200% of normal forest area, the vast majority of which were caused by lightning, reported The Guardian.
Despite the growing trend toward worsening wildfires, the University of California, Merced (UC Merced) report stated that most climate models have been too coarse to capture the conditions and create it.
The UCMerced study is the first to use machine learning techniques to tackle this problem, simultaneously looking at future changes in lightning frequency and changes in weather variables like air temperature, humidity, wind and soil moisture that can predict how likely a fire is to spread.
“The overall risk of sustained LIW ignition and spread is expected to rise due to increasing background temperatures, FWI, and CG lightning occurrence,” stated Dmitri Kalashnikov, a climate scientist at the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at University of California-Merced and the study’s lead author in his study.
The findings come as this year’s wildfire season in the US is shifting into high gear in a manner eerily similar to what Kalashnikov imagines for the future – lurching forward after a series of dry thunderstorms tore through California earlier this week.
Rising Risks of Wildfires
The increase in lightning-induced wildfires (LIWs) is a critical concern for climate experts, as rising temperatures and prolonged dry spells become more prevalent. A 2023 study published in the journal Nature underscored that the rapid increase in wildfire frequency as a result of climate change, poses a growing threat to both human and environmental health.
With wildfires spreading faster, they contribute to worsening air quality, threatening lives, property, damaging infrastructure, forests, grasslands and other ecosystems, sometimes leading to ecological changes, according to another 2025 study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment: X. The severity of wildfires is often exacerbated by high fuel loads, drought conditions, and extreme weather patterns, report added.
Experts call for urgent global collaboration to mitigate future risks through stricter emissions targets and investment in sustainable wildfire management systems.
