Wildfires and wildlife: the impact on biodiversity
Wildfires and wildlife: the silent disaster devastating biodiversity
Fire does not discriminate. When a wildfire breaks out – whether from natural causes, human negligence or, as happens all too often, deliberately – it destroys everything in its path. And that “everything” includes thousands of animals that cannot flee, that lose their homes, or that survive only to find themselves in a landscape that can no longer sustain them.
Wildfires are among the natural disasters with the greatest direct impact on wildlife. That impact is measured not only in immediate deaths, but in the destruction of entire food chains, the loss of unique habitats and the fragmentation of populations that can take decades to recover.
This is the silent disaster that happens every summer in Europe, every dry season in Latin America, every year in Australia or sub-Saharan Africa. And to a large extent, it could be prevented or mitigated.
How many animals die in a wildfire?
The figures are hard to pin down precisely – animals killed in a fire are not counted the way burnt hectares are – but the available scientific studies paint a devastating picture.
Australia’s 2019–2020 bushfires, known as the “Black Summer”, killed or displaced an estimated 3 billion animals. In Spain, the 2022 fires affected more than 300,000 hectares, with an impact on wildlife that experts described as “catastrophic” in some areas.
The animals hit hardest are the least mobile: reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and nesting birds. Insects – the basis of the food chain for a huge variety of species – suffer massive losses that have knock-on effects across the entire ecosystem.
The species most affected by fire in Spain and Europe
In the European Mediterranean, wildfires have a particularly severe impact on several threatened species:
- Spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca): unable to escape the fire, it suffers mass mortality in its populations in south-eastern Spain.
- Spanish imperial eagle: fires destroy the pine and holm oak forests where this endangered species nests.
- Iberian lynx: although it is mobile enough to escape the fire, the destruction of its habitat drastically reduces the prey and territory available to it.
- Migratory birds: fires in stopover or wintering areas severely affect species that depend on these ecosystems to complete their life cycles.
The Fondation Franz Weber is actively working to protect migratory corridors. The Col de l’Escrinet – Migratory Birds project shows how action can be taken to preserve key points along Europe’s migration routes.
What happens to ecosystems after a fire
The damage from a wildfire does not end when the flames die down. For surviving wildlife, the post-fire phase is often as critical as the fire itself.
Animals that escaped alive return to land stripped of plant cover, shelter and food sources. Bare soil is exposed to erosion and rain, which wash sediment into rivers and streams, harming aquatic life. Opportunistic species spread and displace native ones before they can recover.
The protection of forests and protection of trees is therefore at least as important a strategy for protecting wildlife as direct action for animals. Protecting a forest also means protecting every living thing that depends on it.
Fires and climate change: a self-reinforcing cycle
Climate change is transforming the nature of wildfires. Fire seasons are longer, fires more intense and the areas affected larger. Extreme heat and drought create conditions that turn once-resilient forests into tinderboxes.
And fires, in turn, accelerate climate change: burning forest biomass releases huge amounts of CO₂ stored over decades. It is a vicious circle that threatens to spiral out of control unless urgent action is taken on both fronts.
Can wildlife recover after a fire?
The good news is that ecosystems have a remarkable ability to recover if given the time and the right conditions. Some studies have shown that, in the absence of further fires, wildlife can recolonise affected areas within five to fifteen years.
But that recovery is neither automatic nor guaranteed. It requires neighbouring unburnt forests to act as reservoirs of wildlife. It requires human pressure on recovering areas to be kept in check. And above all, it requires no new fires before the ecosystem has had time to rebuild.
How the Fondation Franz Weber works to protect habitats
The Fondation Franz Weber sees the protection of wildlife and the protection of its habitat as two sides of the same coin. Through its projects for the protection of forests and the protection of trees, it works to preserve the forest ecosystems that are home to thousands of species.
