EExtreme heat records have been broken around the world this year, and scientists say 2024 is likely to be the hottest year in human history. As the climate crisis causes droughts and wildfires and has a devastating impact on crops and animals, the Guardian has spoken to people living in some of the worst-hit places
Mike Noel, United States
Noel is a regional fire officer for the U.S. Forest Service and was part of the force that fought the wildfires in California. This year alone, more than 800,000 acres (323,750 hectares) have burned across the state.
The biggest changes I’ve seen are the overall size and complexity of the fires. From a fire behavior perspective, the rate of spread – several thousand hectares burning in one fire season – I can definitely say this is something I haven’t seen in my career so far.
I’ve been through big fires – the Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona and the Yellowstone fire in 1988, which burned over 1,000 acres – but ’20, ’21 and ’22 in particular have been huge fires, and that’s definitely new.
Complexity continues to increase rapidly as cities grow, and it becomes even more complex when communities, infrastructure and populations are so close to wildfires.
We have a lot of people and a lot of equipment, but on some of these fires, given the right conditions – weather, fuels, these places haven’t burned in 100 years – Mother Nature is one step ahead of us. We work hard to put the fires out, but some days you just can’t keep up.
California was pretty quiet, then we had days where temperatures were between 100 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fuels dried out quickly. Fuels are not used to being baked at 120 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 days and reaching temperatures of over 80 degrees Fahrenheit at night. So that’s where we are.
Fighting forest fires is already strenuous on a good weather day. People are covered from head to toe in personal protective equipment and carry backpacks weighing over 20 kilograms. Therefore, fighting fires in temperatures between 32 and 46 degrees Celsius is an additional physical strain. Physically, fighting fires is more difficult and the fuels are much more resistant to extinguishing.
If you are exposed to temperatures for a long time, you will suffer from heat-related illnesses. Humans are not designed to perform extreme physical work in extreme temperatures for long periods of time.
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Yanipak Arunsinprasreat, Thailand
Subscribe is a durian farmer in Korat, Northeast Thailand. Record heat this year has claimed dozens of lives and destroyed crops across the country.
The perfect temperature for durian would be 35°C. Durian tolerates heat well, but this year it was so stuffy – it was about 40°C. It felt like being in an oven, without the slightest wind.
I usually water the durian trees for an hour a day, but this year I watered them for two to two and a half hours a day. It didn’t help.
Suddenly the fruits started falling and breaking. Sometimes between 100 and 200 durians would fall to the ground in one day. This has never happened before. Our mangoes and guavas were also affected.
I was expecting to get about 200,000 to 300,000 baht (£4,430 to £6,640) if all 100 trees produced a good yield. At the moment I think I will only get 20,000 baht. I am in debt because of the cost of the fertilizer.
We couldn’t do anything with the fallen durian. We just threw it away because the durian itself was so bland – it had no taste at all – you can’t make chips or candy out of it.
The durian here is special; the rind is thin and the smell is not too strong, it is sweet and very delicious. But due to climate change, the taste has changed; it is less sweet and more bland. In the past, we could usually sell a good durian for 180-200 baht per kilo, but now it is only 100-120 per kilo.
(I can adapt so that the fruit) is harvested before the hottest months. But not every farmer can do the same; it depends on the area. I think production will decrease and durian will become more expensive. It will become more difficult to be a farmer (because the weather is unpredictable). Some farmers will go bankrupt.
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Alexia Papagiannakos Anni, Greece
Papagiannakos Anni works at Vrouva Farm Animal Sanctuary in Greece, which Unusually high temperatures prevailed throughout the summer.
The high temperatures started in early June and continued non-stop. It’s hard on everyone, but we had an old German Shepherd with weak kidneys, Max, who died at the end of June. The extra stress of the constant heat was just too much for his body. An old horse had a stroke but surprisingly survived and we hope he will recover. But this too was caused by the heat. Rabbits are particularly sensitive, so when temperatures are above 39°C we take them to someone’s home. The same goes for the chicks, they can’t stand the heat.
The worst thing for us is seeing them suffer. There is not much you can do and it is very frustrating. We can moisten the soil and the animals a little but the water from the municipality is not enough for the tourist season so we have to buy more. The animals sit there panting and have no appetite. They are sad. The dogs and the cats are panting. The cats have their mouths open and their tongues hanging out, they are literally panting and there is nothing you can do. It is absolutely heartbreaking.
But it’s not just pets and livestock, but insects and soil creatures too. Our fate is intertwined with theirs, and we need to start paying attention. This is easy when the animals are near us, but when we do, a window opens to all of creation. After seeing our dogs and cats panting, our volunteers went into the forest and set up buckets of water for the wild animals.
As Ajit Niranjan tells
Gustavo Figueroa, Brazil
Figueroa is a biologist and conservation director at SOS Pantanal. Forest fires in the Brazilian Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world, have burned more than 405,000 hectares this year.
I am a biologist and I worked part-time as a firefighter because my region – the Brazilian Pantanal wetland – has suffered so many terrible fires over the past four years that I couldn’t bear to just stand there and watch the destruction.
Since I was a child in São Paulo, I wanted to work with nature. When I saw the incredible diversity of life in the Pantanal, I was hooked; I never wanted to leave. It is a privilege to work here, but the record fires since 2020 have threatened everything.
I remember seeing the charred body of an alligator in a dry riverbed the first year. That was horrific enough, but then a family of coatis came to the scene looking for water where there was none. The ones that weren’t burned died from drought – and in a wetland, no less.
The following year there was another big fire that I helped fight. At one point I came across a nearly dry lake full of snakes seeking refuge from the heat, smoke and flames. Many were already dead, but I was able to save an anaconda. That was an incredible feeling for me because snakes are my specialty.
Experiences like these leave their mark. Firefighting is exhausting. I became ill from smoke inhalation and suffered from skin problems. Even worse are the psychological effects of seeing a place I love in flames and seeing so many wonderful creatures burn.
It happened again this year. But we must learn from it. Civil society must build stronger structures to fight the fires. We must persuade the government to do more. And we must raise public awareness of what is happening.
As Jonathan Watts told it
