Fire on Ice: The Arctic’s Changing Fire Regime
In a NASA's Earth Observatory feature drawing on a 2025 Arctic Council report, GEOG Chair Tatiana Loboda, explains why fire intensity is raising particular concern for Arctic ecosystems and the vast carbon stores locked in frozen ground.
The number of wildland fires burning in the Arctic is on the rise, according to NASA researchers. Moreover, these blazes are burning larger, hotter, and longer than they did in previous decades.
These trends are closely tied to the region’s rapidly changing climate. The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average, a shift that directly impacts rain and snow in the region and decreases soil moisture, both of which make the landscape more flammable. Lightning, the primary ignition source of Arctic fires, is also occurring farther north. These findings are detailed in a report published in 2025 by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), a working group of the Arctic Council.
“Fire has always been a part of boreal and Arctic landscapes, but now it's starting to act in more extreme ways that mimic what we've seen in the temperate and the tropical areas,” said Jessica McCarty, Deputy Earth Science Division Chief at NASA’s Ames Research Center and an Arctic fire specialist. McCarty, the report’s lead author, worked as part of an international team for AMAP.
But it’s not just the number of fires that concerns scientists; it’s how hot they burn.
“It's the intensity that worries us the most because it has the most profound impact on how ecosystems are changing,” said Tatiana Loboda, chair of the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland.
Published on Thu, 01/15/2026 - 10:17