Post by World Resources Institute

🔥🌳Are wildfires getting bigger and more frequent? In 2023 and 2024, fire-driven #TreeCoverLoss was roughly 2X the global annual average of the last two decades, and 3X higher in the tropics, as record-breaking fires raged across Canada and South America. These two years were notably the warmest on record. 💡For some forests, fires are essential. Boreal forests, which are mostly made up of evergreen trees in northern regions like Canada and Russia, accounted for about 60% of tree cover loss due to fire between 2001 and 2024. Having evolved alongside fire for thousands of years, the trees in these forests have developed thick bark and heat-resistant seed pods that open after burning, allowing them to withstand and recover from fires. But these adaptations can fail when fires become too intense or frequent, sometimes leading to permanent forest loss when forests transition to grasslands. 🌴Such adaptations are absent in tropical rainforests like the Amazon, which until recently experienced very little fire. In these ecosystems, fires can be catastrophic, killing trees, harming Indigenous communities, releasing vast amounts of stored carbon and damaging wildlife habitats. Can forests withstand and recover from wildfires? Global Forest Watch explains here➡️ https://lnkd.in/eJ9uZ3-F