Wildfires Are Destroying the Carbon Budget

Wildfires are one of the fastest-growing sources of carbon emissions. This blog explains how quickly emissions build after ignition and why early detection within minutes can reduce CO₂ release. It draws on scientific modelling and real-world data to show how detection timing influences climate outcomes.

Key questions include:

• How do wildfires affect carbon emissions?
• How much CO₂ does a bushfire release?
• Why are recent fires so much worse for the climate?
• Can early wildfire detection really reduce carbon emissions?
• How much difference do minutes make when a fire starts?
• Can wildfire detection be part of a carbon credit strategy?

We draw on recent science, real-world fire data, and modelling used in our latest white paper on climate impacts and avoided emissions, “Reducing Carbon Emissions: AI Wildfire Detection Within Minutes”.

Early detection changes the outcome. When fires are found within minutes, rather than after half an hour or longer, far less carbon reaches the atmosphere. That makes rapid smoke detection more than a fire management tool. It becomes a powerful climate mitigation measure, one of the fastest and most scalable available.

This blog is a condensed version of exci’s white paper on wildfire emissions and climate risk, explaining how detecting fires within minutes can significantly reduce CO₂ release.

Wildfires are now a major driver of global carbon pollution

Wildfires are no longer local disasters that burn and fade from view. They are now one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet, and they are starting to undo hard-won progress in every other sector that is trying to decarbonise.

When a forest burns, it does two things at once. It releases decades of stored carbon in a matter of hours, and it damages the very ecosystems that would normally pull that carbon back out of the atmosphere. In events like Canada’s 2023 fire season and Australia’s Black Summer, forests that usually act as powerful carbon sinks become temporary net emitters and major climate stressors. Recovery is measured not in months, but in decades.

In addition to these headline events, something more subtle and more troubling is happening. Fire emissions are shifting from the tropics into highly sensitive boreal and temperate forests. Since 2001, CO₂ emissions from forest fires have risen by about 60 percent, with boreal fires nearly tripling. The result is a growing extra pulse of roughly half a billion tonnes of CO₂ a year from these regions alone — a major and underestimated driver of global warming.

At the same time, 2024 saw the largest recorded annual jump in atmospheric CO₂, pushing levels to about 427 ppm. Scientists are clear about what this means. The world is not gently bending the curve. It is still accelerating toward climate tipping points — yet every tonne of CO₂ we avoid still reduces future harm.

Wildfire emissions and the climate feedback loop

These fires are part of a feedback loop that is already under way. Hotter, drier conditions create longer and more volatile fire seasons. Those fires release more carbon. That extra carbon drives further warming, which in turn primes the landscape for even more fire.

This loop is particularly visible in the Northern Hemisphere, where extended droughts, lightning storms, and human ignitions now align with unprecedented fuel loads. If we leave this pattern untouched, extreme seasons like Canada 2023 stop being “once in a century” and start becoming normal by mid-century.

Breaking that loop requires more than better firefighting once a blaze has taken hold. It requires stopping a large share of fires while they are still small enough to control. That is why detecting fires within minutes now matters as much as emissions reduction technology.

Why minutes matter for fire growth and carbon emissions

Short answer:
Wildfire emissions increase rapidly within the first hour. Detecting fires within minutes reduces the area burned and limits the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Under typical summer conditions, a small ignition can grow from a patch of burning ground into a fast-moving, carbon-intensive fire in less than an hour. Using a conservative benchmark of around 60 to 130 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per hectare, even the first 90 minutes can determine total emissions.

Wildfire emissions typically range from around 20 to over 150 tonnes of CO₂e per hectare, depending on vegetation type, fuel load, and fire intensity. Temperate forests tend to sit at the higher end of this range.

Can early wildfire detection reduce carbon emissions?

Short answer:
Yes. Detecting fires within minutes limits fire growth, which reduces the total area burned and the resulting carbon emissions.

The modelling in our white paper shows a simple pattern:

• At around 0.2 hectares, emissions are roughly a dozen tonnes of CO₂e
• At around 5 hectares, they climb into the hundreds of tonnes
• At 50 hectares and beyond, they reach thousands of tonnes

This is why early bushfire detection is also a carbon-prevention strategy.
The gap between “caught early” and “noticed too late” is not academic. It is the difference between a fire that can be attacked directly and one that becomes a landscape-scale carbon event with global consequences.

Why satellites and gas sensors detect fires too late

Short answer:
Most current systems detect fires after they have already grown. Satellites rely on intermittent overpasses, while gas sensors depend on smoke and gases reaching them, which can delay detection by tens of minutes.

Many current systems simply do not operate at the timescale the climate problem demands. In industry discussions, the term “ultra-early wildfire detection” often refers to systems that detect fires within 20 to 60 minutes. exci sets a higher standard: proven smoke detection within 1 to 3 minutes before fires grow large enough to drive major carbon emissions.

Satellites only see what is beneath them during their brief overpasses. A fire that starts after one pass may burn for hours before the next. Resolution limits, cloud cover, smoke, and night time all add further blind spots. In practice, satellites often detect fires when they are already well established.

Ground gas sensors face a different constraint. They do not see smoke. They wait for combustion gases to drift into a very limited detection radius. Wind direction, terrain, and dilution can delay that moment by 20 to 60 minutes or more. To detect fires as early as smoke-based systems, gas sensors would need to be deployed at extremely high densities across the landscape, making large-scale deployment economically unfeasible.

In other words, these systems tend to respond to fires that already exist at scale. For wildfire emissions reduction, that is too late.

exci’s role: Detecting Smoke Before Fires Become Carbon Catastrophes

exci focuses on the earliest reliably detectable sign of ignition: visible smoke. Our AI-powered detection system uses advanced computer vision to continuously scan large areas and identify smoke within 1 to 3 minutes.

Over time, exci has expanded from AI detection into a complete, end-to-end solution. We now deliver both the technology and the supporting infrastructure required for reliable early detection in remote and high-risk environments. This ensures stable connectivity, strong coverage, and consistent performance across forests, plantations, agricultural land, powerlines, and other critical assets.

exci’s AI technology has been proven at scale during a 2020–21 proof of concept, covering more than 130 million acres across North America using 1,000 cameras. Today, exci monitors millions of hectares of plantations, forestry, and critical infrastructure across Australia in active deployments.

Early detection does not extinguish a fire. However, it gives land managers, utilities, and emergency services something they rarely have today: reliable information while a fire is still small enough for rapid initial attack. That extra time increases the chances of keeping ignitions to fractions of a hectare, rather than watching them escalate into carbon-heavy megafires.