Key learning points

1. Wildfires are uncontrolled fires that spread fast through vegetation, e.g. forests, grasslands or shrublands.
2. Wildfires have both natural and human causes.
3. Climate change is making the conditions needed for wildfires to spread more likely.
4. The carbon dioxide emitted from wildfires was a huge contribution to carbon emissions in 2022.
5. The 2022 Siberian wildfires had devastating impacts on people and the environment.

Keywords

• Global warming - the increase in Earth's average temperature over a long period of time

• Habitat - the natural home or environment of an animal, plant or other organism

• Boreal forest - the world’s largest land biome, found in the northern hemisphere

• Carbon sink - anything that absorbs and stores more carbon dioxide than it releases

Common misconception