Greenland Records First 2 2026 Wildfires On June 14th and 15th; Though Small Areas, CO2 Released By M2 Burned Very High
Scientists have expressed concern after two wildfires broke out within a week of each other on the Arctic island of Greenland earlier this month. Fires were burning close to Sisimiut, Greenland’s second largest town and a popular tourism centre, on 14 and 15 June, satellite imagery has shown, while a second blaze hit Kujalleq, on the island’s southern tip, on 17 June.
While most of Greenland, a largely autonomous territory, is covered in vast ice sheets and thick glaciers, a significant part is ice-free and covered in tundra. Wildfires in these areas are rare, but becoming more common. For two fires to break out this early in the summer, however, is particularly unusual. “Vegetation fires at high northern latitudes are more usual in July and August,” said Dr Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.
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A study of fires in ice-free regions of western Greenland did not detect any blazes from 1995 to 2007. It then recorded 21 separate events between 2008 and 2020, with major fires in 2017 and 2019. Climate breakdown has heated the Arctic four times faster than the rest of the planet. Parrington said it was “challenging” to determine why the latest fires had occurred earlier than usual but that Copernicus data showed “anomalously high” air temperatures that could make vegetation more flammable.
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Though Greenland wildfires are small by global standards, (Ed. - University of Helsinki climate scientist Sonja) Diaz’s research suggests the carbon released per square metre is much higher than previously reported for other tundra fires. The research, which is under peer review, also suggests the carbon is old, having been locked in the ground for hundreds to thousands of years. Her husband, Lucas Diaz, a Brazilian environmental engineer at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam who was also part of the trip to study the 2019 fires, said he first thought of the TV show Game of Thrones when he saw an advert for a research position studying such blazes in a project called “fire in the land of ice”.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/23/scientists-alarmed-wildfires-greenland