The World on Fire

The Guardian has Mapped: how the world is losing its forests to wildfires and, in the process, managed to transform abstract climate statistics into clear, spatial comparisons.

The story opens with an interactive 3D globe that is used to reveal the sheer scale of forest lost to wildfires around the world. By panning and zooming the globe to recognisable areas, the article provides concrete examples of the size of forest lost to wildfires. Numbers like “360 square kilometres a day” suddenly have geographic weight when compared to familiar places – such as the country of England.

A number of static maps are also used in the article to highlight the effects of wildfires on the forests of Russia, Canada, Brazil, Australia and Bolivia. In Russia, the map reveals fires stretching unnervingly far north, brushing the Arctic Circle and even reaching permafrost regions. This spatial context underlines the impact of climate change: these fires don’t just look large, they look out of place, occupying latitudes not commonly associated with wildfire.

Overall, The Guardian’s data visualisation makes a stark argument: forests that once acted as global carbon sinks are increasingly appearing on maps as sources of emissions instead. The Guardian’s maps don’t just show where fires happened; they show how climate change is rewriting the geography of risk.

Also See

The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS)
NASA - Fire Information for Resource Management System