MELBOURNE, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Australia faces an escalating bushfire threat as climate change is driving extreme wildfire events worldwide, said a new global report released Thursday.
According to the second annual State of Wildfires report, climate change has increased areas burnt by wildfires by a magnitude of 30 times in some regions in the world.
In Australia, over 1,000 large fires burned around 470,000 hectares in the state of Western Australia, and over 5 million hectares were burnt in central Australia during 2024-2025, said a statement of Australia's University of Melbourne (UniMelb).
The report, which reveals a stark picture of increased fire events across multiple continents, was co-led by the UK Center for Ecology & Hydrology with global partners including UniMelb.
UniMelb Senior Research Fellow Hamish Clarke, the report's Australian co-lead author, said the clear interrelationship between climate and extreme events on this level was alarming.
"Our study revealed that an area totaling 3.7 million square kilometers, which is a land area larger than India, was burnt by wildfires globally," Clarke said.
According to the report, 100 million people were affected by fires between 2024-2025 and 215 billion U.S. dollars' worth of homes and infrastructure were put at risk.
In the Australian state of Victoria during the 2024-2025 wildfire season, the Grampians National Park saw two-thirds of its park area burned, and the Little Desert fire burned 90,000 hectares in less than eight hours, said Sarah Harris, manager of Victoria's Country Fire Authority, also the report's Australian co-lead author.
"The deadly Los Angeles wildfires in January were twice as likely and burned an area 25 times bigger than they would have in a world with no human-caused global warming," said Clarke, who cited further wildfire examples in Canada, Bolivia and Brazil.
The report warns that more severe heatwaves and droughts are making wildfires more frequent and intense worldwide, resulting in increasing threats to people's lives, property, economies and the environment. ■
