The total area burned worldwide during the first half of 2026 is at its lowest level since :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: satellite measurements began. This is emphasized by Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg, who at the same time accuses the media of giving a misleading picture by mainly reporting when extensive fires are ongoing.

However, this comparison has met with objections. The EU’s two fire monitoring systems in fact provide different views of the trend in Europe. While the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: GWIS database shows record-low levels, the EU’s more detailed European statistics from EFFIS are above the seasonal average.

In a thread on X, Lomborg refers to statistics from the European Commission’s Global Wildfire Information System, GWIS. According to him, less land had burned :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89:ly during the first half of this year than in the corresponding period of any other year in the comparable series.

All continents, according to the compilation, were below their historical averages. Africa, North and South America, and Europe were all reported to be at record-low levels. For Europe, Lomborg claimed that the burned area was the lowest since the comparison period began in 2012.

– The media only shows when things are burning, which leaves us poorly informed about climate change, Lomborg wrote.

Second Lowest Global Level in 2025

Lomborg also points out that 2025 ended with the second lowest :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: proportion of burned land in the available satellite series. According to his compilation, 2.198 percent of the earth’s land surface burned during the year, compared to the record-low 2.169 percent in 2022.

The data comes from the Terra and Aqua satellites and NASA’s :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: product MCD64A1. The system combines reflectance measurements from MODIS with observations of active fires and maps burned land in squares with a 500-meter resolution.

The fact that the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89:ly burned area has decreased is not disputed. The UN climate panel IPCC has previously stated that the total area burning worldwide has decreased over the past decades, mainly due to fewer fires in grasslands and savannas.

At the same time, the IPCC assesses that climate change is becoming increasingly significant for fire conditions and may increase both risk and severity in certain forest and ecosystem types. The IPCC’s conclusion thus encompasses both developments at once.

Africa accounts for a significant part of the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: decrease. A scientific review of the development over the past two decades estimates that the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: burned area has decreased by about 27 percent, largely due to fewer savanna fires in Africa. This means that a decline in the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: total does not necessarily say how extreme forest fires are developing in, for example, North America or the Mediterranean region.

The Objection

Lomborg’s description of Europe has also been questioned, with reference to the European Commission’s other fire database, the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

The account La petite histoire du climat pointed out that the statistics ‘shift direction’ depending on which of the EU’s databases is used. GWIS shows a burned area below the average for Europe, while EFFIS statistics for the EU countries show that so far, 2026 is above the average for the period 2006–2025.

Another critic also published diagrams from EFFIS showing that both the total burned area, the number of registered fires, and the combined severity of fires were above the average at the beginning of July. However, the levels were still within the broad historical min–max range.

The difference is at least partly due to the systems using different geographic boundaries, comparison periods, resolutions, and methods. EFFIS is specifically developed for Europe and uses both MODIS images and higher-resolution Sentinel-2 images. Fires are mapped through a partly automated process and then visually checked.

The European Commission itself warns that results should be compared cautiously with statistics produced using other methods and boundaries. According to EFFIS, the system is estimated to cover about 95 percent of the area burned within the EU.

Lomborg’s main statement—that the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89:ly burned area is unusually low so far—is thus supported by the :censored:6:cdd6bbaa89: statistics he references. On the other hand, the conclusion about Europe depends on which database and geographic delimitation are used.