Human-induced reduction in low-elevation burned area shapes the global declining trends

Wildfires are a crucial component of the global ecosystems, exerting momentous impacts on climate, ecosystems, biodiversity, carbon storage, and human health. Despite the consensus that human activities are the primary driver of the global decline in burned area, the trends and underlying mechanisms across elevation remain poorly understood. We leverage multi-source remote sensing data to reconstruct a high-resolution (500 m) global burned area dataset, revealing distinct burned area trends across elevation gradients for different fire types. Over the period from 2002 to 2020, the global annual average burned area derived from the 500 m resolution dataset was estimated at 768.5 ± 51.8 Mha (Mean ± standard deviation). The global burned area exhibited a pronounced decline at an average rate of -7.8 ± 1.2 Mha yr^-2 (p < 0.05). The burned area declines in low-elevation regions (0–600 m) is strikingly rapid with a rate of -5.9 ± 0.9 Mha yr^-2 (p < 0.05), contributed by savanna (-2.1 ± 0.5 Mha yr^-2, p < 0.05), grassland (-2.7 ± 0.4 Mha yr^-2, p < 0.05), and cropland burned areas (-1.6 ± 0.3 Mha yr^-2, p < 0.05). Although climate drivers inherently expand global burned areas, anthropogenic activities have exerted an overriding offsetting effect to reduce burned areas in low-elevation regions, which is most pronounced for savanna, grassland, and cropland fires. Conversely, at high altitudes, the impact of human activities tends to be attenuated, with meteorological conditions and fuel availability becoming dominant factors, resulting in a slower rate of burned area decline (-1.9 ± 0.6Mha yr^-2, p < 0.05). Forest fires show a persistent, albeit nonsignificant, upward trend in burned area across both low-elevation and high-elevation, underscoring their mounting susceptibility to wildfire, which is driven primarily by warming-induced fuel desiccation and higher ignition probability. This “human-driven vs. climate-driven” dichotomy pattern underscores the complex interaction between anthropogenic and environmental drivers in shaping fire dynamics across elevation gradients. These findings reveal an elevation-dependent divergence in wildfire regimes, trends, and drivers that are reshaping the Earth’s fire landscape substantially, with profound implications for global biodiversity conservation and carbon cycle dynamics in a warming future.