Wildfires are becoming one of the most significant climate-related crises of the twenty-first century. Yet their economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts are still not fully reflected within the international architecture of Loss & Damage (L&D).

Today, we welcome an important contribution to this global debate: Nature Communications Earth & Environment Magazine has published the article “Recognition of Loss & Damage from wildfires is key for climate justice”, co-authored by scientists, experts, and brigadistas from different regions of the world, including Victoria Matusevich, program coordinator at Fundación Avina and the BASE Initiative.

An urgent issue enters the scientific and political spotlight

The article highlights what communities, brigades, and scientists have been signaling for years: climate change is intensifying fire seasons and amplifying wildfire impacts, creating profound losses and damages across territories.

This discussion becomes especially relevant as the Fund for Responding to Loss & Damage (FRLD) launched its first call for proposals on November 10 during COP30. While the call does not list specific climate-related events (neither hurricanes, droughts, nor wildfires) it opens a key opportunity for countries to submit proposals under windows such as:

  • (ii) intermediate or long-term recovery, reconstruction, or rehabilitation

  • (iii) activities addressing slow-onset events

This creates space for governments, including Brazil, to design proposals that directly support community and volunteer brigades, strengthen Integrated Fire Management, and respond to the increasing losses and damages driven by extreme wildfire seasons.

What we are advancing through BASE

BASE Initiative is working to ensure that this critical gap is addressed:

  • We generate climate evidence, in collaboration with My Climate Risk (WCRP) and scientific partners, integrating attribution science with local knowledge.

  • We mobilize local financing with Fundo Casa Socioambiental and COIAB, for community and volunteer brigades, which play a central role in prevention and frontline response.

  • We strengthen collective action, including through a preliminary study developed with GAIA Social on how private-sector actors can contribute to wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response in Brazil.

  • We drive strategic advocacy, in collaboration with Loss & Damage Collaborationso that the Loss & Damage architecture explicitly recognizes wildfire impacts and enables direct, agile support for affected communities.

A step forward for climate justice

Featuring this issue in Nature provides strong scientific grounding and international visibility for an urgent call: without integrating wildfires into the global Loss & Damage architecture, climate justice will remain incomplete.

📄 Read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02968-w