South Korea’s Deadliest Wildfires Twice As Likely Because of Climate Change: Study

The link between human-made climate change and increased extreme weather events like wildfires is “undeniable”, a researcher behind an attribution study on the recent wildfires in South Korea has said.

World Weather Attribution, an academic collaboration studying extreme event attribution, found that hot, dry and windy conditions that fueled South Korea’s deadliest and largest ever wildfires were twice as likely and about 15% more intense due to warming caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

Since March 21, multiple areas in the southeastern South Korea have simoultaneously been affected by severe blazes that spread extremely rapidly owing to very strong winds.

The fires, which followed months of unusually low rinfall and high temperatures, burnt across an estimated 104,000 hectares, an area larger than New York City. At least 32 people have died and some 5,000 buildings have been destroyed, including many ancient sites.

When prolonged dry spells occur, vegetation becomes parched and highly flammable, transforming forests and grasslands into tinderboxes waiting to ignite. The scarcity of moisture not only dries out plants but also increases the likelihood of human activities, lightning strikes, or other ignition sources sparking fires.

Once a fire starts in these arid conditions, it can spread rapidly and uncontrollably due to the abundance of dry fuel and low humidity levels typical of drought-stricken areas.

“A decade ago, the influence of climate change on events was less clear. But now, it’s undeniable,” said Friederike Otto, WWA Co-Lead and Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial College London. “The wildfires in South Korea are a case in point – a doubling in likelihood of fire-weather is a huge increase and puts thousands more people at risk of dangerous fires.”

2024 was South Korea’s hottest year since since 1973, when record keeping began, with an average temperature of 14.5C.

Several regions registered record-breaking temperatures last month, when the fires broke out. The highest temperature of 28.5C was recorded in Gumi, a city in North Gyeongsang Province. Here, temperatures in March typically range between 14C and 3C. Meanwhile, the capital Seoul recorded 24C, the second-highest March temperature on record.

Well Established Link

The analysis is just the latest in a series of studies linking climate change to more frequent and intense extreme weather events like wildfires and floods.

Research has shown that both the frequency and intensity of wildfires have more than doubled in the last two decades, as more frequent hot, dry, and windy conditions create the perfect fuel. When accounting for the ecological, social and economic consequences of wildfires, six of the last seven years were the most “energetically intense”.

Climate change has increased the wildfire season by roughly two weeks on average globally, mostly by enhancing the availability of fuel through heat and dry conditions. The average wildfire season in Western US is now 105 days longer, burns six times as many acres, and sees three times as many large fires – fires that burn more than 1,000 acres compared to the 1970s, according to Climate Central.

Despite an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires globally, however, the amount of area burned by wildfires each year has gone down over the last few decades.

A 2017 paper published in Science found that global burned area declined by approximately 25% over the past 18 years, despite the influence of climate. The phenomenon can be explained by a decline in burn rates in grasslands and savannas as a result of the expansion and intensification of agriculture.