Are northern wildfires releasing more carbon?

New reconstructions point to a hidden source of emissions

Recent research reconstructing emissions from boreal and northern wildfires suggests current climate inventories may be missing substantial carbon released when fires burn organic soils. Scientists rebuilt emissions from major wildfire events and found that smouldering combustion of peat and organic layers can emit ancient, soil‑stored carbon that standard methods tend to undercount.

Why this matters

• Northern forests and peatlands hold large stores of carbon accumulated over centuries or millennia. When fire penetrates those soils it releases carbon that had been effectively locked away, increasing the net climate impact of a wildfire beyond the immediate combustion of vegetation.
• Climate models and national greenhouse‑gas inventories typically estimate fire emissions using above‑ground fuel and fire area data; smouldering soil combustion is harder to observe from satellites and is often omitted or underestimated, biasing estimates of the carbon cost of boreal fires.

Implications and responses

• Better measurement: expanded ground sampling, targeted aircraft campaigns and new remote‑sensing techniques are required to detect and quantify soil smouldering.
• Model updates: climate and carbon‑budget models should incorporate soil‑carbon combustion pathways and duration of smouldering to improve projections.
• Management actions: protecting peatlands, reducing ignition risk, and adapting fire management in boreal regions can reduce releases of deep soil carbon.

In short, northern wildfires may be more damaging to the climate than presently accounted for because they can liberate ancient carbon from soils. Closing this observational and modelling gap is critical for accurate emissions tracking and for designing effective mitigation strategies.