The Lancet: Wildfires the Latest “Health Emergency”

In recent years, editors of medical, science, and bioethics journals have proclaimed almost every major societal problem to be a “health emergency” or crisis. Off the top of my head, I can think of several: guns, racism, immigration enforcement, global warming, abortion restrictions, and fear of future pandemics.

Now, the editors of The Lancet want to stoke fear of summer wildfires as the pretext to claim yet another public health emergency. From, “Wildfires, a Health Emergency“:

Europe is burning. Wildfires in France and Spain have engulfed hundreds of square miles of land, destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of 330,000 people as the threat now moves east to Greece, Italy, and central Europe. The fires have been so large and intense that they have created their own weather systems. President Emmanuel Macron described the situation as France’s most severe crisis since the Second World War. The causes of Europe’s wildfires are multifactorial, but there is no doubt that climate change has spurred the record-breaking heatwaves that have turned the continent into a tinderbox. The result is a colossal health emergency.

We who live on the East Coast have experienced the awful smoke pollution caused by Canadian fires. That’s not good or healthy. But are wildfires really increasing at such an exponential rate internationally that they constitute a public health emergency?

Not according to Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish political scientist and statistician. He bothered to check the publicly available data on wildfires in 2026 and noticed that there are less burn areas this year than at any time between 2012-2025 — including record lows in North America and Africa. From his Facebook post:

Less Global Fire
On August 5, 7 months through 2026:
Every continent below average, and Africa, South America, and North America at record lows
World at -42%
You are being badly informed on climate change
https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/…/gwis…/seasonaltrend
You can see all the references in my Twitter thread:
https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/2085330203593585055

Don’t tell the hysterics at The Lancet, who don’t want to let fear caused by summer fires go to waste:

There is stagnation and rollback on climate change commitments, driven in large part by ruthless commercial lobbying. Will these heatwaves and wildfires change anything? Historically, concern for health has been a decisive factor in regulating some of the most harmful practices of private enterprise, from tobacco advertising to water pollution. The need to be vocal about the health threats of climate change is as strong as ever — both to guide a response that protects people’s wellbeing and to advocate for the urgent revitalisation of climate policy that is so sorely needed. Will these heatwaves and wildfires change anything?

The plan here could not be more obvious: Treat fires as a public health emergency — adding urgency to the already self-declared public health emergency of climate change — thereby justifying fire and climate relevant policies to be imposed technocratically, similar to what happened during the “experts decide” glory days of Covid-19. The desired result? Increasingly coercive regulation of individual freedom, the stifling of free markets, and suppression of fossil fuel enterprises.

No. Keep calm and carry on. Deal with the problems presented, to be sure. But if we value our freedom, we’d better push back against the ongoing attempted public health imperialism.