A government bus outfitted with oxygen tanks. Fire fighters collapsing to the ground in relief at the first sign of rain. Dozens of orangutans rescued. And hundreds of Indonesian students marching through the haze, some wearing gas masks, others carrying signs that read, “If we burn, you burn with us.” These are recent scenes from Indonesia’s worst wildfire season in a decade. More than 4.6 million acres have burned across the country since August, blanketing its large island regions, like Kalimantan and Sumatra, in a thick smoke that has spread to neighboring countries. Millions are breathing in this toxic haze, and the government’s data shows that more than 300,000 Indonesians have sought treatment for acute respiratory problems. On some days, the air quality conditions are more than thirteen times worse than the threshold considered unhealthy. And like in many tropical countries, buildings in Indonesia are often built to maximize air flow — rather than filter it or keep it out. “This is a public health catastrophe,” said Robert Field, a fire researcher at Columbia University. Although there are other pressing consequences of the fires, such as carbon emissions and the harm to wildlife and forest habitats, “it’s hard to think...

A government bus outfitted with oxygen tanks. Fire fighters collapsing to the ground in relief at the first sign of rain. Dozens of orangutans rescued. And hundreds of Indonesian students marching through the haze, some wearing gas masks, others carrying signs that read, “If we burn, you burn with us.” These are recent scenes from Indonesia’s worst wildfire season in a decade. More than 4.6 million acres have burned across the country since August, blanketing its large island regions, like Kalimantan and Sumatra, in a thick smoke that has spread to neighboring countries. Millions are breathing in this toxic haze, and the government’s data shows that more than 300,000 Indonesians have sought treatment for acute respiratory problems. On some days, the air quality conditions are more than thirteen times worse than the threshold considered unhealthy. And like in many tropical countries, buildings in Indonesia are often built to maximize air flow — rather than filter it or keep it out. “This is a public health catastrophe,” said Robert Field, a fire researcher at Columbia University. Although there are other pressing consequences of the fires, such as carbon emissions and the harm to wildlife and forest habitats, “it’s hard to think...

Wildfires no longer follow a summer calendar — Colorado burned on Dec. 30, Texas set its acreage record in February, and California's worst fires now strike in January. The states carrying the highest risk share expanding suburbs, drier landscapes, and fire seasons that have quietly swallowed the whole year.

Wildfires no longer follow a summer calendar — Colorado burned on Dec. 30, Texas set its acreage record in February, and California's worst fires now strike in January. The states carrying the highest risk share expanding suburbs, drier landscapes, and fire seasons that have quietly swallowed the whole year.

Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in a decade, with smoke from the fires already spreading to neighbouring countries. Dry conditions linked to the ongoing Super El Niño event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean could make the fires increasingly difficult to control, raising public health concerns across the region. Data from Nusantara Atlas, an independent platform that tracks wildfires in Indonesia, showed that the country had recorded 1,061,746 wildfire hotspots as of October 14, 2026. This has already surpassed the 885,037 hotspots recorded in 2019, the previous worst year in the comparison. The total area burned in Indonesia had reached 895,657 hectares (ha) by August 2026, according to the atlas. In comparison, 2,631,469 ha burned during the whole of 2019. Smoke from the fires, containing polluting gases and airborne particles, has travelled beyond the affected areas into residential parts of Indonesia and neighbouring countries, including Malaysia and Singapore. This has worsened air quality and raised concerns about public health, according to aBBC report. The BBC, citing local experts, non-governmental organisations and government officials, identified slash-and-burn land-clearing practices by major companies and unusually dry conditions associated with El Niño as key factors behind the fires. Although slash-and-burn land clearing is...

AviationNews – Airbus Helicopters has released an operational assessment detailing how its H225 Super Puma fleet tackled severe wildfires across southern Europe, delivering high-volume aerial suppression over more than 640,000 burned hectares. The milestone review underscores the heavy twin-engine helicopter's expanding footprint in international aerial firefighting, serving as a rapid-response asset during intense seasonal blazes in France and Spain. The official assessment outlines deployments during a grueling summer wildfire period where over 295,000 hectares burned in Spain and 115,000 hectares burned in France.

Like so many others, I spent late July choking on smoke as wildfires, worsened by fossil-fueled climate change, raged across Canada and the United States — as well as France, Greece, Spain, and Turkey. People, including firefighters, lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands of others were forced to flee their homes, with many losing everything. And millions of people across the U.S., many living hundreds of miles from the wildfires, experienced dangerous levels of pollution from wildfire smoke. The undeniable fingerprints of climate change are all over recent extreme wildfire seasons. Across the world, unusually hot, dry weather, punctuated by extreme heatwaves, has dried out ecosystems, priming them for fire. In the U.S., the burned area in 2026 was, by late summer, 168% of the 10-year average, while many fires continued to burn out of control. Globally, burned areas are decreasing, but not all fires are equal. Most of the reduction in global burned areas comes from savannahs and grasslands, as changes in agricultural practice and land use reduce intentional fires and burned areas. In contrast, fire activity and burned areas in North America’s forests continue to intensify, burning large areas with growing severity. These fires can burn so severely...

Peterson said the team's first deployment this summer, which wrapped up last week, was "incredibly successful." Flying into the firestorms was "kind of an unworldly experience," Peterson recalled. "It's a really dark, almost orange hue when you go through the cloud. Also, because of the huge amount of smoke that's been pushed upward, you can often smell that on board for a little bit." "We were able to get into the tops of the smoke as it was released by these clouds. We were even able to sample the tops of the clouds themselves," he said. Here's what to know about pyrocumulonimbus clouds and what researchers hope to learn from the INSPYRE mission. How a firestorm is born In hot, dry and windy conditions, with abundant fuel, some wildfires can generate a dense plume of smoke that rapidly carries water vapor and smoke particles high into the atmosphere. As the water vapor cools and condenses, a pyrocumulonimbus cloud forms and spreads out at the top of the plume. Animation by Wesam Sorour/PBS News "PyroCbs act as giant chimneys and push lots of smoke upward in the atmosphere," Peterson said. Firestorm clouds can generate their own weather that in turn creates...

The United States is on pace to see one of its most active wildfire seasons on record. According to a new AccuWeather report, large fires were active in at least 13 states as of Sept. 9, while more than 8.4 million acres had burned nationwide this year—about 1.3 million acres above the full-year annual average over the previous decade. The Los Angeles fires in January 2025 were high-profile incidents that drew widespread attention to the nation’s risk. They were notable as sudden, highly concentrated, urban conflagration events—and they stand in contrast to the 2026 wildfire season, which has garnered less attention with the incidents geographically dispersed across the U.S. However, almost twice as much land has burned so far in 2026 as had burned at the same point in 2025, according to AccuWeather. The Palisades and Eaton fires in L.A. showcased just how costly massive wildfires are in terms of infrastructure damage, loss of life, and economic impact. Collectively, the fires burned about 37,500 acres and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, killing at least 31 people. Munich Re estimated total damage at $53 billion, including $40 billion in insured losses—“by far the largest insured loss on record from a wildfire event,”...

Like so many others, I spent late July choking on smoke as wildfires, worsened by fossil-fueled climate change, raged across Canada and the United States, as well as France, Greece, Spain and Turkey. People, including firefighters, lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes, with many losing everything. And millions of people across the U.S., many living hundreds of miles from the wildfires, experienced dangerous levels of pollution from wildfire smoke. The undeniable fingerprints of climate change are all over recent extreme wildfire seasons. Across the world, unusually hot, dry weather, punctuated by extreme heatwaves, has dried out ecosystems, priming them for fire. In the U.S., the burned area in 2026 is currently 168 percent of the 10-year average, while many fires continue to burn out of control. Globally, burned area is decreasing, but not all fires are equal. Most of the reduction in global burned area comes from savannahs and grasslands, as changes in agricultural practice and land use reduce intentional fires and burned area. In contrast, fire activity and burned area in North America’s forests continue to intensify, burning large areas with growing severity. These fires can burn so severely that they...

Wildfire smoke may be especially harmful to humans because of an evolutionary mutation that affects how our immune cells handle tiny air pollution particles.

YouTube video by Wander with Tintin

This year’s wildfire season in Utah — comprising 843 individual fires collectively burning more than half a million acres of land — are shaping up to be the state’s worst on record. Two firefighter pilots were killed as the state faces soaring temperatures and longstanding droughts, while numerous homes and vacation properties were consumed in the blazes. In an Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll, 93% of registered voters in the state who were questioned said they were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the fires. Virtually none of the Utah residents said they were “not at all concerned.” Philip Dennison, a professor at the University of Utah’s School of Environment, Society & Sustainability, echoed Utahns’ concerns in an interview with the Deseret News: “I think it’s a long-term trend that we need to be concerned about,” he said. “Every decade we seem to be escalating the areas that burn.” Health impacts become a daily reality Wildfires producing poor air quality have created widespread, tangible consequences for Utahns. Just under half of all respondents to the poll reported experiencing health symptoms such as coughing, trouble breathing or irritated eyes. Almost 2 out of every 3 Utahns limited their time outdoors...

Catastrophe & Flood By Josh Recamara Aug 17, 2026 Share A "super" El Niño is developing in the Pacific, with forecasters now projecting sea surface temperature anomalies that could exceed anything recorded in the past century. Environment Canada meteorologist Bill Merryfield told CBC's Daybreak North that current models point toward a peak surge past 3 degrees Celsius above average - well beyond the 2-degree threshold that defines a super El Niño event. The pattern will not materially affect this year's already-severe BC wildfire season. El Niño's effects on BC do not typically set in until the event peaks later in the year. What it signals instead is an elevated probability of a milder, drier winter stretching into spring, with below-normal precipitation raising the odds of unusually low snowpack - particularly along the coast, where the difference between rain and snow often comes down to which side of the freezing line a storm falls on. Why an early snowmelt matters more to insurers than a mild winter does A lower snowpack combined with a milder spring creates the conditions for an earlier-than-normal snowmelt. Merryfield said that can dry out land surfaces and vegetation heading into summer, raising drought and wildfire risk...

Over 100 wildfires currently are burning in Canada and winds are carrying the smoke southeast. Warnings about dangerous, unhealthy air extended Wednesday from Minnesota through Toronto and into New York.

Montana Wildfire Smoke

Wildfires are sweeping through several regions of Greece, forcing mass evacuations and drawing international firefighting support as strong winds and drought conditions hamper containment efforts.