Fire behaviour is changing in many regions worldwide. However, nonlinear interactions between fire weather, fuel, land use, management and ignitions have impeded formal attribution of global burned area changes. Here, we demonstrate that climate change increasingly explains regional burned area patterns, using an ensemble of global fire models. The simulations show that climate change increased global burned area by 15.8% (95% confidence interval (CI) [13.1–18.7]) for 2003–2019 and increased the probability of experiencing months with above-average global burned area by 22% (95% CI [18–26]). In contrast, other human forcings contributed to lowering burned area by 19.1% (95% CI [21.9–15.8]) over the same period. Moreover, the contribution of climate change to burned area increased by 0.22% (95% CI [0.22–0.24]) per year globally, with the largest increase in central Australia. Our results highlight the importance of immediate, drastic and sustained GHG emission reductions along with landscape and fire management strategies to stabilize fire impacts on lives, livelihoods and ecosystems.

全球许多地区的火灾行为正在发生变化。然而，火灾天气、燃料、土地利用、管理和火灾之间的非线性相互作用阻碍了全球燃烧面积变化的正式归因。在这里，我们使用全球火灾模型集合证明了气候变化越来越多地解释了区域燃烧区域模式。模拟显示，气候变化使2003-2019年全球燃烧面积增加了15.8%（95%置信区间（CI）[13.1–18.7]），并增加了22%全球燃烧面积高于平均水平的月份的可能性（95% CI [18–26]）。相比之下，同期其他人为强迫导致燃烧面积降低了 19.1% （95% CI [21.9–15.8]）。此外，气候变化对全球燃烧面积的贡献每年增加0.22%（95% CI [0.22–0.24]），其中澳大利亚中部的增幅最大。我们的结果强调了立即、剧烈和持续减少温室气体排放以及景观和火灾管理策略的重要性，以稳定火灾对生活、生计和生态系统的影响。