Wildfire is a natural and essential component of many forest and other terrestrial ecosystems. Excessive wildfire, however, can kill people, cause respiratory disease, destroy houses, emit carbon dioxide and damage ecosystem integrity . Anthropogenic climate change increases wildfire by exacerbating its three principal driving factors: heat, fuel and ignition . Non-climatic factors also contribute to wildfires-in tropical areas, fires are set intentionally to clear forest for agricultural fields and livestock pastures . Urban areas and roads create ignition hazards. Governments in many temperate-zone countries implement policies to suppress fires, even natural ones, producing unnatural accumulations of fuel in the form of coarse woody debris and high densities of small trees . Globally, 4.2 million km2 of land per year burned on average from 2002 to 2016 , with the highest fire frequencies in the Amazon rainforest, deciduous forests and savannas in Africa and deciduous forests in northern Australia .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report