Climate resilience discussions globally focus on floods, heatwaves, droughts, and storms. Wildfires rarely enter that conversation. They are still widely treated as local disasters rather than a major climate concern. Yet their impact reaches far beyond the landscapes where they burn. Each year fires release an estimated 2.5-4 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases globally, while destroying forests and ecosystems that communities depend on. Despite this, wildfire emissions are still only partly tracked in greenhouse gas inventories, and fire management rarely treated as a climate mitigation or resilience tool. In reality, wildfires sit squarely at the intersection of adaptation and mitigation.
India is increasingly part of this story.
Fire itself is not new. In many ecosystems it is a natural process and, in some landscapes, even a traditional tool used to manage forest and reduce build-up of dry vegetation that can feed fires. What is changing is the scale, intensity and unpredictability of fires. The climate crisis is altering fire patterns worldwide, pushing many landscapes beyond the conditions they historically experienced.
Forests that have stored carbon for millennia are now releasing it back into the atmosphere, creating a feedback loop: Warming fuels fires, and fires fuel further warming.
Unlike many climate hazards, destructive forest fires are avoidable. With better risk planning, early detection and preparedness, small fires can often be prevented from becoming large, damaging ones.
India’s forests are central to its climate stability, biodiversity and livelihoods but they are increasingly exposed to destructive fires.
- Nearly 60% of India’s forests experience some level of fire occurrence each year (Forest Survey of India).
- 36% of forest cover is classified as fire-prone (Forest Survey of India).
India’s forests are central to its climate stability, biodiversity and livelihoods but they are increasingly exposed to destructive fires.
- Nearly 60% of India’s forests experience some level of fire occurrence each year (Forest Survey of India).
- 36% of forest cover is classified as fire-prone (Forest Survey of India).
These trends matter because India has made two major international commitments:
- Restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
- Creating an additional 2.5 – 3 billion tonnes of carbon sink under its Nationally Determined Contributions.
Large and repeated fires weaken these goals. Yet the full economic and climate cost of these fires remains largely unmeasured, and wildfire risk reduction is still rarely discussed as a climate policy lever.
Over the past decade, India has been strengthening its wildfire systems. Near real-time alerts from the Forest Survey of India now reach field teams. The National Action Plan on Forest Fires provides a national framework for prevention and control. States like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, have set up dedicated control rooms, improved monitoring, and trained rapid-response teams. Forest fires are now recognised within national disaster frameworks, giving states faster access to response funds.
These are important foundations. But the climate crisis is altering fire behaviour faster than institutions were designed to handle.
Longer dry periods, rising temperatures, the spread of invasive species, steady drying of many forest types and the changing land-use are making fires burn hotter and spread faster. Human activity at forest edges has also increased.
In India, most forest fires are human-caused--linked to grazing, land preparation, or everyday forest use.
This also means that solution must involve communities. Managing fire is less about eliminating it altogether, and more about ensuring that fires remain small, controlled, and ecologically appropriate rather than escalating into large destructive events.
Across the world, there is a growing shift toward Integrated Fire Management--approaches that combine preparedness, science, community knowledge, and ecological restoration alongside firefighting.
India has an opportunity to adapt this thinking to its own landscapes.
- Plan before fires, build predictive capacity: Better planning can significantly reduce wildfire damage. Combining fire history, climate trends, vegetation type, invasive-species maps and local knowledge can help identify high-risk areas and spread trends. Such predictive planning helps authorities prepare before fire seasons begin and deploy resources where they are most needed.
- Work with communities, not around them: Local communities understand forest conditions intimately. Knowledge of drying cycles, species behaviour, early warning signs, risk slopes, spread tendencies is invaluable. Many ignitions are linked to livelihood practices. Working with communities can transform fire use into safer, more sustainable practices and strengthen early-warning networks.
- Invest in risk reduction, not just firefighting: Globally, most wildfire budgets still go toward firefighting rather than planning and preparedness. Rebalancing investment toward early warning, landscape management and restoration can significantly reduce long-term fire damage. India could expand funding for risk reduction, better community integration and restoration while leveraging innovative forest finance opportunities.
- Restore degraded forests: India has 93,000 km² of degraded forest within its recorded forest area. Restoring these landscapes, through native species recovery, invasive removal and soil improvement, can rebuild carbon stocks while also reducing future fire intensity.
Wildfire governance is also gaining global attention. In December 2025, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted its first-ever resolution on wildfires, recognising fire as a growing risk to climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods. India played a leading role in advancing this resolution.
Other international efforts--including the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter, Brazilian Wildfire Call to Action and FAO’s emerging Fire Hub--reflect a growing recognition that catastrophic fires can be limited with the right combination of science, policy and community action.
Forest fires are quietly reshaping India’s forests, affecting ecosystems, rural livelihoods and the country’s climate goals. The good news is that many of the most destructive fires can be limited through better planning, early detection and stronger partnerships with communities. But India’s forests are too diverse for a single solution. What works in the Western Ghats may not work in central India or the Himalayas.
Managing fire will require learning from the landscape itself – testing solutions locally and scaling what works.
This article is authored by Manjusha Mukherjee, portfolio advisor, Environmental Defence Fund, India.