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Australia

Fire season: December to January

Damage report: Summers in Australia are notable for two things: barbecues and bush fires. Australia is currently facing its worst drought in a century, which for the past few years has lead to more frequent and severe bush fires. In January 2003, a bush fire in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory blazed through a region almost the size of the U.S. state of Texas, destroying 500 homes and killing four people, to say nothing of the thousands of sheep and cattle caught in the conflagration. And from late 2006 to early 2007, firefighters in Australia’s southern state of Victoria battled some of the worst bush fires in Australia’s history for 50 rainless days in a row and had to call for backup from New Zealand and U.S. smoke jumpers. Meanwhile, humidity levels in Australia hit record lows of between 3 and 5 percent (20 percent humidity is considered a serious fire threat).

Future trends: Scary. Bush fire season began months earlier than usual last summer, and there’s been little respite from the drought. Australian government scientists warn that climate change will continue to produce more-frequent hot weather and less rainfall. During the next few decades, they predict, the frequency of days with very high fire danger will increase between 20 and 30 percent.

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Greece

Fire season: June to August

Damage report: In 2006, wildfires caused by lightning ravaged the Halkidiki peninsula in the north, a summer holiday destination especially popular with Britons. More than 1,000 tourists had to be evacuated. Then in 2007, Greece experienced its worst forest fires in recorded history when blazes raged from the north of the country to the south. More than 60 people died, and hundreds of homes and an area of forest about the size of Rhode Island were destroyed. Even the archaeological ruins in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympics, were threatened. Greece’s prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, declared a state of emergency and said the country was facing “an unspeakable tragedy.” Government and forestry officials blamed arsonists for triggering many of the blazes, but a long, dry summer and an intense heat wave helped fan the flames as well.

Future trends: Possibly bleak. Not only are forest fires a seasonal hazard in Greece, typically destroying an area about the size of 227,000 football fields every summer, but arsonists have strong economic incentives to cause them. Greece’s construction industry is booming and demand for land is soaring. Although forested land cannot be developed, burned forest land can be reclassified as former farmland, making way for development.

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Indonesia

Fire season: Year-round, with heightened risk between February and September

Damage report: Ever since the massive wildfire in Indonesia between 1982 and 1983, one of the 20th century’s largest, forest fires have been a sadly familiar event in the country. The regions of Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo) and Sumatra are particularly afflicted. A severe wildfire season in 1986 drew complaints about air quality and economic damage from neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, but it wasn’t until fierce forest fires from September 1997 to April 1998—made dramatically worse by the El Niño effect, an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that causes drier conditions in this region—that Indonesia truly became a regional outcast. Countries as distant as Australia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka protested about the resulting gray “haze” and loss of air quality. In the worst-affected areas of Indonesia, simply breathing became equivalent to smoking 80 packs of cigarettes a day. Since fire is used as a cheap land-clearing tool to make way for cash crops, forest fires in Indonesia are almost invariably human-induced. But given that 10 million hectares of land burned in the 1997-1998 fires, it’s clear these controlled burns can quickly get out of control.

Future trends: Worrisome. Last year’s forest fires in Indonesia were the worst since 2006, but the fact that Indonesia’s fires are primarily caused by humans and not by environmental factors offers some hope. Indonesian law forbids forest burning; the only question is whether Indonesia’s leaders can summon the political will to take on the arsonists.

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Portugal

Fire season: July to August

Damage report: For the past five years, Portugal has faced some of the most deadly forest fires in Europe. In 2003, unusually hot, dry air and strong winds impacted almost 6 percent of the country’s forests, burned more than 350,000 hectares of land, and caused massive soil erosion that affected water supplies and agriculture. Fifteen people died, and the damage added up to an estimated 1 billion euros. Then in 2005, during a severe drought, five major fires swept across Portugal. The largest struck an area north of Lisbon and stretched for more than 13 miles. Again, more than 300,000 hectares of forest were burned and at least 18 people died, including a number of firefighters.