In 2026, the Southern Hemisphere will experience record heat and wildfires.

Scientists predict that extreme heat and wildfires will rage through the Southern Hemisphere in 2026. After three years of record-breaking temperatures, scientists expect even more extreme weather conditions and perhaps another global annual record. In January, Australia was engulfed in a heat dome that set a new record, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees C. (122 degrees F). Meanwhile, heat and wildfires ravaged parts of South America. Remote parts of Argentina's Patagonia were set ablaze, and 21 people died?in coastal communities in Chile. South Africa is also experiencing the worst wildfires it has seen in years.

Extremes continue to occur even though the world is still under the cooling influence a weak "La Nina", a climate cycle marked with cooler waters in the eastern and central Pacific which began in December 2024. Temperatures are still reaching new records in many places despite this moderating effect.

Theodore Keeping, a climate scientist at Imperial College London who specializes on research into wildfires and extreme temperatures and is part of the international research collaboration World Weather Attribution and the Imperial College London research team.

"As the transition from a neutral phase to an El Nino phase occurs, we can expect extreme heat events in the world will be amplified," Keeping said.

El Nino has the opposite of La Nina. It warms the eastern and central Pacific, and increases global temperatures.

Adam Scaife is the head of long-range predictions at the United Kingdom's National Weather and Climate Service. This would be the fourth year in a row that the temperature will be more than 1.4° C (2.5° F) higher than pre-industrial.

The Paris Agreement, a 2015 international climate treaty, aims to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degree F) above preindustrial levels.

Scaife stated that a record could still be set in 2026 if a large El Nino develops quickly. Last month, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the last three years had been the warmest ever recorded.

FIRE RAGE FROM WOODS AND WATER

Wildfires can be caused by humans, but they also occur naturally in many ecosystems. Heat, drought, and extreme temperatures are causing fires to become uncontrollable.

Keeping stated that many ecosystems have not adapted themselves to the?hot and dry conditions', causing fires to become more intense and larger, causing damage to be permanent.

According to Carolina Vera, a meteorologist at the Center for Ocean and Atmospheric Research of the University of Buenos Aires, the fires that ravaged Argentina's Los Alerces National Park demonstrate the shift.

The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contains trees that are more than 3,000-years-old.

Local officials determined that lightning struck caused the fire. Initially, the fire was contained. Vera, however, said that a heatwave and strong winds had caused the fire to spread 20 km (12 miles), making it the most destructive wildfire in two decades.

Since 2008, the region has been?drought-stricken. The temperatures during the first two week of January were?6 C (11 F) higher than normal.

Vera explained that "these fires used burn themselves out as part of the forest dynamics."

Vera stated that "this is an example of climate change altering a natural fire because it appears to have been caused by lightning."

This remote area is devoid of any towns.

In January, fires broke out in southern Chile, and spread to the Concepcion region, the third largest metropolitan area in the country. They destroyed hundreds of homes, and killed 21 people.

Keeping said that the fires resembled recent disasters such as Los Angeles and Athens, or the Hawaiian island Maui.

"In the areas where there have been the most deaths, it's almost always because evacuation is difficult or impossible," Keeping explained. This is especially true in areas affected by strong winds blowing downslope toward the coast.

WHIRLWINDS of FIRE

Around 80% of Punta de Parra was destroyed. This small coastal town, located in southern Chile, is surrounded by mountains and forests.

Residents of Punta de Parra said that they only had a short time to evacuate. Doralisa Silva (34), said that she heard of a fire in another community near the town the night before the blaze hit.

Silva said, "The forest caught fire out of nowhere and the entire house was on fire." The fire came at us in a blink of an eye. "There was nothing we could have done."

Silva claimed that her family fled the scene last because they did not have a vehicle. Silva and Hermes Barrientos, who fled with their 2-year-old child, said that flames blocked the exit while embers fell.

Barrientos stated that winds as high as 70 km/h (43.5 mph), whipped the area and created whirlwinds, which spread fire to the beach. Residents were trapped. The family and other residents eventually took refuge in a large field of dirt?in the middle of town and spent the evening watching their community burn.

The Future is Filled with Fire

The record-breaking heat in southeast Australia is also fueling the worst fires the country has seen since the 2019-2020 deadly season when 33 people died.

According to officials, the fire season of 2025-2026 was the worst in South Africa for a decade. It killed wildlife and affected tourist destinations like Mossel Bay and Franschhoek.

"The conditions that cause the most extreme fires to occur?--hot, dry, and windy -- are intensifying and becoming more common," Keeping stated. "And this is happening around the globe."

Since the 1970s, the Southern Hemisphere's temperature has increased by 0.15 to 0.1 degrees C (0.27 - 0.30 degrees F). This is largely due to its vast oceans absorbing heat more slowly as well as melting ice in Antarctica.

Even though southern land masses continue to warm at the same rate as northern land masses, contrasts between melting snow and warming land can intensify weather patterns and lead to heat waves, droughts, or flooding.

Keep said that?adaptation was critical. This included authorities managing vegetation around cities, developing effective evacuation plans and?builders utilizing fire-resistant material. Wildfires cause increasing economic damage. A report from the insurance broker Aon in 2026 estimated that global insured wildfire loss would be $42 billion by 2025. This is up from $4 billion on average per year between 2000 and 2024. Los Angeles' fires in last year's record-breaking heat were the most expensive ever.

Swiss Re, second largest reinsurer in the world, has found that before 2015 wildfires represented 1% of insured global losses due to natural disasters, but they now account for 7%. Economic losses related to fires have increased by $170 million per year since 1970.

"You can't stop many of these large, intense wildfires." "They're just too big," Keeping stated.

Keeping stated that the most important thing to do is "have a real conversation about limiting climate change in the future to prevent this problem from getting worse."

(source: Reuters)