Wildfires
Firestorms out of control — the megafires and firestorms that consumed forests, towns and skies from Australia to California to the Amazon.
Part of Natural Disasters
55 moments in this segment.
- — The Black Thursday bushfires. The 1851 Black Thursday fires burned a quarter of what is now Victoria, Australia, on a single day.
- — The 1871 Peshtigo Fire. The deadliest wildfire in recorded history swept through Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing up to 2,500 on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire.
- — The Thumb Fire of 1881. A firestorm swept Michigan's Thumb region in 1881, the first disaster to which the new American Red Cross responded.
- — The Great Hinckley Fire. A firestorm destroyed the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, in 1894, killing over 400.
- — The Tillamook Burn. A series of huge fires burned Oregon's Tillamook forest repeatedly from 1933, later famously replanted.
- — The 1947 Maine fires. Wildfires swept coastal Maine in the dry autumn of 1947, burning Bar Harbor and much of Acadia.
- — The Ash Wednesday bushfires. Firestorms swept South Australia and Victoria on Ash Wednesday 1983, killing 75.
- — The 1988 Yellowstone fires. Fires burned a third of Yellowstone National Park, forcing a rethink of natural fire management.
- — The Kuwaiti oil fires. Retreating forces set fire to over 600 Kuwaiti oil wells, blackening the sky for months in an environmental catastrophe.
- — The 2003 Okanagan Mountain fire. A wildfire forced the evacuation of Kelowna, British Columbia, destroying hundreds of homes.
- — The 2003 Cedar Fire. California's Cedar Fire near San Diego was the state's largest wildfire at the time.
- — The 2007 Greek wildfires. Wildfires swept the Peloponnese in Greece's deadliest fire season, killing over 80.
- — Australia's Black Saturday. Bushfires on a day of catastrophic heat killed 173 people in Victoria, Australia — the country's deadliest bushfire disaster.
- — The 1997 Indonesian fires. Vast peat and forest fires blanketed Southeast Asia in choking haze in 1997-98.
- — The 2016 Fort McMurray fire. A wildfire forced the evacuation of 88,000 people from Fort McMurray, Alberta, in Canada's costliest disaster.
- — The 2016 Gatlinburg fires. Wildfires driven by drought and wind swept into the tourist town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, killing 14.
- — The 1967 Black Tuesday fires. Bushfires swept Tasmania on Black Tuesday 1967, killing 62 in and around Hobart.
- — The 2017 Portugal wildfires. Wildfires swept central Portugal, trapping people in their cars on a road near Pedrógão Grande, killing 66.
- — The 2017 Tubbs Fire. A wind-driven fire tore into Santa Rosa, California, destroying whole neighbourhoods overnight.
- — The 2017 Thomas Fire. One of California's largest fires burned into December across Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
- — The Cloquet Fire. A wildfire swept through Cloquet, Minnesota, in 1918, one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
- — The 2018 Scandinavian wildfires. Even the Arctic Circle burned in 2018 as wildfires spread across Sweden during a record heatwave.
- — The 2018 Attica wildfires. Fast-moving wildfires trapped people against the sea near Athens, killing over 100 in Greece's worst fire disaster.
- — The 2018 Carr and Mendocino fires. A summer of record fires — including a fire tornado in Redding — scorched California in 2018.
- — The 2018 Camp Fire. California's deadliest wildfire destroyed the town of Paradise in hours, killing 85 people.
- — The Camp Fire. The deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history destroyed the town of Paradise, killing 85.
- — The 2019 Siberian megafires. Vast wildfires burned across the Russian Arctic in 2019, so large the smoke was visible from space.
- — The 2019 Amazon fires. A surge of deliberate deforestation fires burned across the Amazon in 2019, drawing global alarm over the rainforest.
- — The 2019 Chiquitano fires. Fires burned millions of hectares of Bolivia's Chiquitano dry forest in 2019, alongside the Amazon blazes.
- — Australia's Black Summer. The 2019-20 bushfires burned 24 million hectares, killed or displaced 3 billion animals and turned skies red across Australia.
- — California's 2020 fire siege. A record fire season turned California's skies orange and burned over 1.6 million hectares.
- — The 2020 Oregon fires. Wind-driven fires destroyed whole Oregon towns and turned West Coast skies apocalyptic orange.
- — The 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm. A firestorm swept the Oakland Hills of California, destroying 3,000 homes in hours.
- — The 2021 Siberian wildfires. Record wildfires burned across Siberia's boreal forests and permafrost, larger than all other fires combined that year.
- — The 2021 Mediterranean wildfires. Extreme heat drove wildfires across Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean in a record summer.
- — The 2021 Turkey wildfires. Wildfires swept Turkey's Mediterranean coast during a record heatwave in 2021, forcing tourists to flee by boat.
- — The 2021 Greek wildfires. Wildfires swept Evia and the outskirts of Athens during a record heatwave in 2021.
- — The 2022 Corrientes fires. Fires driven by a historic drought burned a tenth of Argentina's Corrientes province in 2022.
- — The 2022 New Mexico fires. The largest wildfire in New Mexico history, partly sparked by a botched controlled burn, raged in 2022.
- — The 2022 Spain and Portugal fires. A brutal summer of heat drove huge wildfires across Spain and Portugal in 2022.
- — The 2003 Canberra bushfires. Firestorms swept into the Australian capital, destroying 500 homes.
- — The 2023 Canadian wildfires. Canada's worst-ever wildfire season burned 18 million hectares and blanketed North American cities in smoke.
- — The Miramichi Fire. One of the largest recorded forest fires in North America burned much of New Brunswick, Canada, in 1825.
- — The 2023 Maui fires. A wind-driven wildfire destroyed the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii, killing at least 100.
- — The Black Friday bushfires. Bushfires burned nearly two million hectares of Victoria, Australia, on 'Black Friday' 1939.
- — The Matheson Fire. A firestorm swept through northern Ontario in 1916, killing over 200 in one of Canada's deadliest fires.
- — The 2024 Chile wildfires. Fast-moving fires swept into Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, killing over 130 in Chile's worst fire disaster.
- — The Smokehouse Creek Fire. The largest wildfire in Texas history burned across the Panhandle in early 2024.
- — The Jasper wildfire. A wildfire tore into the townsite of Jasper in the Canadian Rockies in 2024, destroying a third of the town.
- — The 2024 Portugal wildfires. Wildfires swept northern and central Portugal in September 2024, killing several.
- — The 2025 Los Angeles fires. Hurricane-force winds drove wildfires through Pacific Palisades and Altadena, destroying thousands of homes in one of California's costliest fire disasters.
- — The 2025 Los Angeles fires. Wind-driven fires destroyed thousands of homes across Pacific Palisades and Altadena in a Los Angeles firestorm.
- — The 2025 South Korea wildfires. The worst wildfires in South Korea's history swept Uiseong and Andong, destroying an ancient temple.
- — The 2025 Mediterranean fires. Extreme heat drove wildfires across Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean again in 2025.
- — The 1987 Black Dragon Fire. One of the largest wildfires of the 20th century burned across China and the Soviet Union in 1987.
