List of largest fires of the 21st century

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Montage of images related to the 2019-20 Bushfire season in Australia

This is a list of the largest fires of the 21st century.

Rank	Name	Country	Area burned	Deaths	Ref.
1	2023–2024 Australian bushfire season	Australia	1,445,372 km2; 558,061 sq mi	10	[1]
2	2024 South American wildfires	Brazil Bolivia Chile Colombia Ecuador Paraguay Peru Venezuela	858,669 km2; 331,534 sq mi (ongoing)	154	[2] [3] [4] [5]
3	2002–2003 Australian bushfire season	Australia	540,000 km2; 210,000 sq mi	7	[6]
4	2024 Brazil wildfires	Brazil	474,381 km2; 183,160 sq mi (ongoing)	2	[2] [3]
5	2019–2020 Australian bushfire season	Australia	243,000–398,000 km2; 94,000–154,000 sq mi	33	[7] [8] [9]
6	2023 Canadian wildfires	Canada	184,960.51 km2; 71,413.65 sq mi	9	[10]
7	2021 Russia wildfires	Russia	78,000–161,000 km2; 30,000–62,000 sq mi	0	[11]
8	2019 Siberia wildfires	Russia	78,000 km2; 30,000 sq mi	0	[12]
9	2014 Northwest Territories fires	Canada	30,000 km2; 12,000 sq mi	0	[13]
10	2020 California wildfires	United States	17,797.3 km2; 6,871.6 sq mi	33	[14]
11	2010 Bolivia forest fires	Bolivia	15,000 km2; 5,800 sq mi	0	[15]
12	2006–2007 Australian bushfire season	Australia	13,000 km2; 5,000 sq mi	5	[16]
13	2017 British Columbia wildfires	Canada	11,480 km2; 4,430 sq mi	0	[17]
14	2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires	Brazil Bolivia Colombia Paraguay Peru	9,064.95–9,307.76 km2; 3,500.00–3,593.75 sq mi	2	[18]
15	2017 Chile wildfires	Chile	5,000 km2; 1,900 sq mi	11	[19]
16	2009 Black Saturday bushfires	Australia	4,010.73 km2; 1,548.55 sq mi	173	[20]
17	2015 Russian wildfires	Russia	1,070 km2; 410 sq mi	33	[21]
18	2018 Attica wildfires	Greece	more than 40 km2; 15 sq mi	104	[22]

References

1. Evershed, Nick; Ball, Andy; Morton, Adam (November 17, 2023). "How big are the fires burning in Australia's north? Interactive map shows they've burned an area larger than Spain". The Guardian . Retrieved February 18, 2024.
2. "GWIS - Statistics Portal". Global Wildfire Information System. Retrieved 2024-09-14.
3. "Wildfires affecting 30 cities in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, leave 2 dead". Reuters . 24 August 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
4. "Chile arrests firefighter for blaze that killed 137 people". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
5. Aquino, Marco; Villegas, Alexander (16 September 2024). Maler, Sandra (ed.). "Peru calls on farmers to halt burns amid deadly fire season". Reuters . Retrieved 17 September 2024.
6. Ellis, Stuart; Kanowski, Peter; Whelan, R. J. (2004-03-31). "National Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management, Council of Australian Governments" (PDF). Commonwealth of Australia. p. xii. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
7. "Australia fires: A visual guide to the bushfire crisis". BBC. 6 January 2020.
8. "It's official: every bushfire in NSW has either been extinguished or is under control". Timeout. 14 February 2020.
9. "2019–20 Australian bushfires—frequently asked questions (updates)". www.aph.gov.au. Australian Parliament House. Retrieved 5 September 2023. the Commonwealth Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements 'struggled to obtain consistent burnt area data on a national scale', and found estimates of area burnt that ranged from 24.3 to 33.8 million hectares (…) The Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment subsequently developed the National Indicative Aggregated Fire Extent Datasets in 2020, which estimated 39.8 million hectares were burnt in the 2019–20 fires.
10. "Fire Statistics". CIFFC.net. Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). October 2023. Archived from the original on 25 October 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
11. Dixon, Robyn (August 11, 2021). "Siberia's wildfires are bigger than all the world's other blazes combined". The Washington Post . Retrieved February 10, 2024. forest fires that have burned more than 62,300 square miles since the beginning of the year, according to Greenpeace (…) The ministry estimates that the area burned in forest fires this year at slightly more than 30,000 square miles
12. "Russian military called in to fight Siberian forest fires". Washington Post. 31 July 2019. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
13. "A new 2014 for wildfires". Cabin Radio. 5 March 2019.
14. "National Large Incident Year-to-date Report" (PDF). Geographic Area Coordination Centers. 14 September 2020.
15. "Bolivia declares emergency over forest fires". BBC. 20 August 2010.
16. Smith, Ross (July 2007). "Key Issues Identified From Operational Reviews of Major Fires in Victoria 2006/07" (PDF). depi.vic.gov.au. Department of Sustainability and Environment & Country Fire Authority . Retrieved 11 June 2015.
17. "B.C. farmers and ranchers devastated by wildfires to get $20M in financial aid". CBC. 6 September 2017.
18. "Brazil's Bolsonaro says he will accept aid to fight Amazon fires". CBS News . August 27, 2019. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
19. Pardo, Daniel (January 29, 2017). ""Es como el infierno de Dante": el drama de los voraces incendios que Chile no logra sofocar". BBC Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved February 18, 2024.
20. "The Australian "Black Saturday" Bushfires of 2009". Saving Earth | Encyclopedia Britannica. 2009-11-23. Retrieved 2021-02-27.
21. "Fire rages on as death toll from two blazes reaches 33". The Siberian Times. 16 April 2015.
22. "Εγκλωβισμένα άτομα στην παραλία στο Μάτι". Newsbomb.gr. 23 July 2018.