Area Burned by Wildfires by Country 2025

What this chart shows. The 25 countries where wildfires burned the most land in 2025, in millions of hectares. Australia led with 35.69 million hectares, 13.4 per cent of the world's 265.4 million, followed by DR Congo with 30.91 million and Angola with 24.91 million.

How the data is collected. The Global Wildfire Information System maps fires from the MODIS and VIIRS satellite sensors, which detect heat and changes in the landscape, and Our World in Data sums the burned area by country and year. Land that burns more than once in a year is counted each time.

Background. GWIS is a joint initiative of the Group on Earth Observations and the EU's Copernicus programme. In its data, the world's burned area in 2025 was the smallest of any year since the series began in 2012, down 24.3 per cent from 350.7 million hectares in 2024. Africa accounted for 59.1 per cent, and 15 of the 25 countries here are African.

Limits. The data provider says small fires can be missed because of the sensors' resolution, so the totals may be underestimates. National agencies measure differently: for Canada GWIS gives 7.37 million hectares against about 8.92 million reported by Canadian fire agencies as of mid-September, while for the United States it gives 3.23 million against 2.08 million in NIFC's count.