Second Day of the Hammer, 71st of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): A report compiled by an international group of scientists has found that wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The report was based on modelling and observations of significant wildfires around the world between March 2024 and February 2025 and found that in addition to being caused by climate change, the increase in  wildfires is also contributing to the problem of climate change. 

Last year alone, carbon emissions from wildfires increased by 9% to reach the sixth highest level on record, mostly due to extreme wildfire seasons in South America and Canada, where forest fires were producing yet more CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere and accelerating the pace of global warming.

In South America, wildfires consumed huge areas of rainforests, dry forests, and wetlands. Wildfires in the Amazon destroyed 44.2M acres in 2024, a 66% increase in land lost to fire compared to 2023. On the border of Bolivia and Brazil, the Pantanal wetlands and the dry forest of Chiquitano suffered extreme fire events causing huge carbon emissions. Carbon emissions were four times above average in Bolivia and 50% above average in Brazil and Venezuela. 

Africa also experienced extreme wildfires, but the continent has received little international attention, despite driving record forest losses. The severe fires in particular struck Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 6% and 2.5% of their total land area was burnt in one week. Across the continent, about 54 acres burned in one week.

The wildfires also caused multiple deaths globally. The fires in Nepal killed 100 people. In Los Angeles, last spring's wildfires killed 31. In addition to deaths, fine particulate matter from the wildfires caused air pollution which exceeded WHO guidelines by up to 60 times.

Climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of drought and fire-favorable weather conditions, lowers vegetation moisture, and preconditions landscapes to burn more regularly, intensely, and severely. At the same time, human land use and land-use change increase the risk of large, fast-moving, and intense fires. As a result, the area that burned in the Los Angeles wildfires was 25 times greater than it would have been otherwise, the report claimed. 

According to the report, the biggest wildfire catastrophes of 2024-25 were two to three times more likely to occur due to climate change caused by humans, and that the frequency of wildfire events is set to rise in the future unless decisive action is taken to rapidly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

That doesn't look likely. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last month, the Stable Genius called climate change "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.” In his long, rambling, often incoherent speech, he added, "All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.” 

EPA's FY2026 budget calls for the elimination of funding for climate change research and partnership programs, and a 48% reduction in the Office of Research and Development budget. 

We're doomed. The world's on fire, often literally, and our leaders are calling the alarms a hoax.