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Escalating Fire-Driven Forest Loss in Protected Tropical Forests
Christopher G Bousfield1, Oscar Morton1
1Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biosciences, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Global Change Biology
|August 12, 2026
Summary
Protected Areas (PAs) have lost over 4 million hectares of tropical forest to wildfires since 2001. While PAs reduce fire probability, they are increasingly exposed to global fire trends, necessitating climate-informed conservation planning.
Area of Science:
- Tropical ecology
- Conservation science
- Climate change impacts
Background:
- Wildfires cause significant tropical forest loss, with climate change exacerbating this trend.
- The effectiveness of Protected Areas (PAs) in mitigating fire impacts on tropical forests is a critical concern.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify tropical forest loss within PAs due to stand-replacing fires.
- To assess the role of PAs in reducing fire probability compared to unprotected areas.
- To analyze temporal trends of fire occurrence inside and outside PAs.
Main Methods:
- Combined Protected Area (PA) boundary data with stand-replacing fire data from 2001 onwards.
- Quantified hectares of tropical forest lost to fire within PAs.
- Conducted counterfactual analysis to compare fire probability inside and outside PAs.
Main Results:
- Over 4 million hectares (Mha) of protected tropical forest were lost to stand-replacing fire since 2001, with 1.35 Mha lost in 2024 alone.
- The majority of losses (89%) occurred in the tropical Americas (3.6 Mha), primarily in Brazil (2.7 Mha).
- PAs generally reduced fire probability, but fire trends inside and outside PAs were tightly coupled, indicating increasing exposure.
Conclusions:
- Protected Areas (PAs) are crucial but increasingly vulnerable to large-scale wildfires driven by climate change.
- While PAs offer some protection, future planning must integrate fire risk assessment to maintain their conservation effectiveness.
- Mitigating anthropogenic ignition sources within PAs is an immediate priority.
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