As Extreme Wildfires Threaten Forests, Indigenous Leadership Offers Solutions

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are among the world’s most effective forest stewards. Research continues to show that the lands they manage often lose less tree cover, store more carbon and support higher biodiversity than surrounding areas.

Yet a new report from WRI and WWF-Australia finds that these lands are disproportionately affected by increasing wildfires. Fueled by climate change, deforestation and decades of colonial-era policies that long restricted Indigenous rights to manage their lands — factors largely beyond the control of Indigenous Peoples and local communities — wildfire risk is rising for the very communities that have done the most to protect these forests, while contributing the least to climate change.

Here, we unpack the drivers behind these findings and explore how restoring autonomy to Indigenous Peoples and local communities can help reduce forest fire risk.

Indigenous and Community Lands Face Rising Fire Risks

The report analyzed satellite data from 2001 to 2024 in four fire-prone countries — Australia, Brazil, Canada and the United States — and compared tree cover loss within forests from both fires and other causes across three land management types: Indigenous- and community-held lands, protected areas and all other lands.

Across the four countries combined, Indigenous- and community-managed lands lost just 6% of tree cover over the past two decades, compared with 11% in state-managed protected areas and 18% in lands under other management. In every country except Canada, Indigenous- and community-held lands saw less overall forest loss than other lands and, in most cases, even less than protected areas. In Canada, rates of forest loss were similar across all land management types.

Yet in Indigenous and community lands, a much greater share of the forest loss — about 62% — was driven by fire; slightly less than in protected areas but nearly twice the share seen in other lands. Most of these fires are not started by the communities themselves; many originate from land-clearing fires in surrounding areas, and, in some cases, fire is used deliberately to pressure or displace communities. This suggests these lands may face greater fire-related impacts as global forest fire activity continues to rise.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are highly effective forest managers, playing a critical role in preventing deforestation and other permanent forms of forest loss. As a result, their lands see less overall forest loss than other land types, but a larger share of that loss is driven by wildfires. As wildfires increase around the world, these lands are increasingly affected by climate change, deforestation in surrounding areas and restrictive fire policies, all of which amplify wildfire risks.

Indigenous and community lands in Brazil are particularly vulnerable to rising fire activity, having seen a fifteenfold increase in fire-driven forest loss since 2001. Much of this loss occurred in the Amazon rainforest, where forest fires were once very rare but have become increasingly common due to decades of deforestation and climate change.

Deforestation and Climate Change Fuel the Wildfire Crisis

From the Amazon rainforest to Australia’s dry forests, extreme wildfires are no longer rare events. While fire can play a beneficial role in maintaining some ecosystems, climate change is making heat waves and droughts more frequent and severe, intensifying fire behavior and pushing ecosystems beyond their historical thresholds. In some regions, deforestation worsens these conditions by drying out forests and increases the risk that land-clearing fires will escape into surrounding areas.

Deforestation drives fires in Brazil

In Brazil, deforestation is a key driver of increasing wildfire activity. Clearing forests for agriculture fragments the landscape, allowing heat, wind and flammable grasses to spread deeper into intact forests. This makes them more fire-prone, increasing the risk of land-clearing fires escaping under hot, dry conditions and igniting surrounding forests. El Niño-driven droughts compound these risks by further drying out vegetation. Strong El Niño conditions leading into the 2016 and 2024 fire seasons, combined with high deforestation rates, fueled extreme wildfires in both years. As the planet warms, such events are expected to become more frequent, further amplifying wildfire risks across the country.

About 1.3 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the size of Puerto Rico — in Indigenous and community lands burned in those two years alone. Most of this loss occurred in the Amazon, home to more than half the Indigenous population in Brazil.

Climate change has increased fire risk in Australia, Canada and the US

In southeastern Australia, where over 84,000 Indigenous Peoples live in fire-affected areas, extreme fires burned 1.2 million hectares of Indigenous-held forest during the devastating 2019–2020 fire season. Strikingly, Australia accounted for about 32% of all fire-driven tree cover loss on Indigenous and community lands across the four study countries, despite containing only 8% of their total forest area. More than 20% of Australia’s temperate broadleaf forests burned during that season — roughly 10 times the typical amount that burns each year. In this region, climate change has made extreme heat events at least twice as likely, increasing the risk of severe wildfires. 

In Canada and the U.S., climate change is extending fire seasons and increasing the likelihood of extreme heat and drought, raising the risk of extreme wildfires like those seen in Canada in 2023. Over the study period, roughly 2.3 million hectares of forests on Indigenous land burned across the two countries. 

How the Wildfire Crisis Impacts Communities 

Beyond forest loss, wildfires can devastate communities by destroying homes and sacred sites, displacing families, harming health and threatening food security and livelihoods. For many Indigenous Peoples, the loss of nature to fire is deeply personal, often likened to losing a family member.  

In Canada, where Indigenous Peoples make up just 5% of the population, they accounted for more than a quarter of all wildfire evacuees between 1980 and 2021. Of the 16 communities evacuated five or more times during this period, 14 were Indigenous reserves. About 90% of smoke-related evacuations involved communities where more than half the population identified as Indigenous, leaving many at severe risk from smoke-related health impacts.

Studies have shown that Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Brazil and the U.S. are also disproportionately vulnerable to wildfire impacts, which often compound existing social and economic inequities.

While Indigenous Peoples are among the most affected, they are also among the most knowledgeable about managing fire on their lands. Their traditional practices, rooted in long histories of observation, stewardship and place-based knowledge, offer proven strategies to reduce wildfire risk and build resilience against wildfires.

Cultural Burning as a Traditional Management Solution 

Cultural burning, a traditional land management technique practiced by many Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years, involves small but frequent, low-intensity burns usually carried out during cooler, wetter periods. These burns reduce flammable fuel loads, encourage biodiversity and support livelihoods.

Unlike land-clearing fires or climate-fueled extreme wildfires, which tend to cause long-term ecological damage, cultural burning mimics natural fire cycles, such as those started by lightning, and helps prevent the buildup of dry, flammable vegetation. It also encourages new growth and maintains healthy, resilient landscapes.

Colonial legacies hamper traditional practices

Colonial governments often disrupted and criminalized cultural burning in favor of blanket fire-suppression policies, even in ecosystems that depend on periodic fire. By treating all human-set fires the same, these policies ignored the ecological benefits and cultural significance of traditional burning, increasing the risk of more extreme wildfires. In Australia, for example, disrupting Indigenous fire management in southeastern forests led to the accumulation of flammable vegetation and contributed to recent severe fires.

These policies also disregarded Indigenous sovereignty by restricting the use of Indigenous Peoples’ long-standing land management practices. Reversing this legacy requires recognizing and supporting Indigenous leadership in traditional fire stewardship.

Reviving Traditional Fire Stewardship Shows Promise  

Around the world, there is a slow but growing movement to restore cultural burning practices. Policy shifts in Australia, Brazil, Canada and the U.S., are beginning to recognize and support Indigenous-led fire programs that combine traditional knowledge with modern firefighting technique. Collaboration among Indigenous leaders, fire agencies and scientists can help ensure these methods are applied effectively and adapted to current climate challenges. Across these regions, several successful initiatives demonstrate how cultural burning can deliver ecological, social and economic benefits:

• In northern Australia, the Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project conducts early dry season burns to prevent large, late-season wildfires. By reducing the area burned in hotter months, the program lowers greenhouse gas emissions, generates carbon credits to help fund community programs and shows how Indigenous-led fire management can deliver both environmental and economic benefits.
• In Brazil, Indigenous fire brigades in the Xingu Indigenous Territory combine traditional fire management with satellite monitoring to protect villages, crops and forest edges from escaped land-clearing fires. other Indigenous Peoples-led efforts coordinated with federal fire agencies, these actions help maintain biodiversity, safeguard food security and strengthen community resilience against extreme wildfires.
• In British Columbia, Canada, Indigenous-led fire crews are partnering with provincial agencies to reintroduce cultural burning in fire-prone landscapes. Low-intensity burns are being used to revitalize native plant species, improve habitat for deer and other wildlife and reduce the buildup of flammable debris. These efforts not only lower wildfire risk but also reconnect communities with traditional fire stewardship practices.
• In the U.S., the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) builds capacity for cultural burning while strengthening coordination with fire agencies. In northern California, the U.S. Forest Service works with the Yurok and Karuk Tribes to apply traditional burning techniques that not only reduce wildfire risk but also increase the availability of plants used in basket weaving — restoring both ecological health and cultural traditions. 

Supporting Indigenous land rights and enabling community-led fire management are essential to reversing the disproportionate wildfire impacts on Indigenous and community lands. Reviving traditional fire stewardship is essential for containing wildfires and protecting land, but it won’t succeed in isolation. Alongside efforts to restore traditional practices, governments, NGOs and the private sector must create the enabling conditions for Indigenous-led solutions to thrive.

To support these efforts, five key areas of action can help restore balance to fire-affected landscapes and empower communities in these regions:

5 levers for action 

1. Securing and upholding Indigenous and community land rights. Legally recognized land rights and reversing colonial-era fire suppression policies give communities the authority to manage forests using traditional practices. Recognized, protected and enforced rights allow communities to prevent illegal logging, restrict harmful land use and invest in long-term fire prevention that help reduce forest carbon emissions.
2. Funding and training Indigenous- and community-led fire brigades. These brigades are often the first — and sometimes only — responders in remote regions. Long-term funding ensures they can maintain trained teams, operate year-round and access essential tools like protective firefighting clothing, water trucks and communications equipment. Investing in these brigades strengthens local capacity to prevent, detect and respond quickly to fires.
3. Expanding access to fire monitoring tools and early warning systems. Modern satellite-based tools can alert communities to new fire outbreaks, illegal burns and deforestation in near-real time. Paired with training, these platforms enable communities to act quickly, share evidence with authorities and hold perpetrators accountable. Expanding access also requires reliable connectivity, technical support and local-language interfaces wherever possible.
4. Ending deforestation in critical biodiversity areas. In many regions, wildfire risk is closely linked to deforestation. Stopping deforestation not only preserves biodiversity and carbon storage but also removes a primary cause of uncontrolled fires. Policies to halt illegal clearing, enforce supply-chain accountability and promote sustainable land use are critical for long-term fire prevention.
5. Taking action on climate change. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to preventing the hotter, drier conditions that lengthen fire seasons and increase fire intensity. Without urgent climate action, other fire prevention measures will be less effective in the long term. 

A Rights-Based Path to Fire-Resilient Forests

Extreme wildfires are not inevitable. Tackling their root causes — deforestation, climate change and the suppression of traditional fire stewardship — can protect forests and the communities who depend on them.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not simply stakeholders in this effort; they are leaders with deep ecological knowledge and proven fire management strategies. Supporting their autonomy, rights and solutions is both a matter of justice, and one of the most effective strategies we have to safeguard biodiversity, protect carbon stores and build climate resilience in an era of escalating wildfire risk. 

 

Cover photo:  by Getty Images.