Simultaneous fire emergencies are breaking out across six countries and three continents. When everywhere is burning at once, no one is left to come to anyone’s aid. Our fire agencies and warning systems are already being outpaced.
Pyroconvective (fire generated) storms used to be considered “black swan” events.
Between 1978 and 2018, there were 60 recorded across Australia. During Australia’s Black Summer, a Royal Commission heard that there was a “flock of these Black Swan events” recorded (25, later revised up to 45) (Abrams et al, 2020; Binskin et al, 2020; Sharples in UNSW 2025).
In Canada’s horror 2023 fire season, when 15 million hectares burned, 142 of these formerly rare events were recorded (Khaykin et al. 2025). France just recorded its first (Bowman, Williamson and Cunningham, 2026).
Fire-generated storms create fires that can’t be fought, and are a clear signal of the worsening fire weather driven by climate change.
After Black Saturday in 2009, Australia had to introduce a new category of fire danger — Catastrophic — because the previous scale that topped out at 100 couldn’t describe the increasingly common fire weather conditions that far exceeded this threshold.
We are seeing the same pattern globally: existing thresholds, warning systems and preparedness levels are being exceeded, not once, but repeatedly, across multiple countries in the same fortnight.
The frequency and severity of today’s wildfires is unprecedented and worsening. Make no mistake: this is driven by climate pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas, making the world hotter and drier, fuelling more severe and frequent fire weather.
https://emergencyleadersforclimateaction.org.au/resources/six-lessons-from-a-world-on-fire/
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