August 2024 has seen a surge in wildfires worldwide, mainly in Africa

The chart shows the weekly area burned by wildfires globally and in Africa from 2012 to 2024. This August saw an abrupt increase in the area burned by wildfires, with most of this rise coming in a single week.

This global weekly burn rate was 64% higher than any previous week during this period. This data comes from the Global Wildfire Information System.

This dramatic rise was mostly driven by severe wildfires in Africa, where approximately 22 million hectares burned in a week, accounting for around 80% of the global burned area.

Two countries have been particularly hard-hit — Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo — where 6% and 2.5% of the total land area have burned in just one week.