“Zombie Fires” in the Arctic Explained
In one of the coldest regions on Earth, a type of fire exists that should be impossible — yet it is real. These fires do not die when the flames disappear. They hide beneath frozen ground, survive the brutal Arctic winter, and then rise again months later as if they were never extinguished. Scientists call them
“zombie fires”. And their existence is one of the most disturbing signs that Earth’s climate system is unraveling.
Unlike normal wildfires that burn above ground and die out with rain or cold, zombie fires smolder underground inside Arctic peat soil. They burn slowly, silently, and invisibly beneath layers of ice and snow. When summer returns and the surface warms, these buried fires re-emerge, igniting new wildfires without any lightning or human spark.
1. What Exactly Are Zombie Fires?
Zombie fires are long-lasting underground fires that burn in peat — thick, carbon-rich soil made from thousands of years of partially decayed plants. Peat is extremely flammable once it dries. When Arctic heat waves dry this soil and a wildfire begins, the fire can sink into the ground and continue burning slowly beneath the surface for months.
Even when snow falls and surface temperatures drop far below freezing, the underground embers remain hot enough to survive. This allows the fire to cross seasons — from summer to winter and back again — without ever truly going out. When spring arrives, oxygen returns to the soil, and the fire “resurrects” itself. This is why scientists named them zombie fires: they appear dead, but they are not.
2. Why Are Zombie Fires Appearing Now?
For most of Earth’s history, the Arctic was far too cold and wet to sustain long-lasting underground fires. But climate change has altered this balance. Arctic temperatures are rising at more than twice the global average. Heat waves now hit regions that were once permanently frozen.
As permafrost melts and peat dries out, the soil becomes flammable for the first time in thousands of years. Once ignited, these soils can burn endlessly beneath the surface. The Arctic is no longer the frozen fire barrier it used to be. It is becoming a new global wildfire zone.
3. The Carbon Time Bomb Under the Ice
Arctic peat and permafrost store nearly twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. This carbon has been locked away safely for thousands of years. But zombie fires unlock it in the worst possible way — through slow, continuous combustion.
When peat burns, it releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and toxic smoke particles. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, accelerating global warming. This additional heat dries more peat, which creates more fires. This is a runaway climate feedback loop — a self-reinforcing cycle that grows stronger with each passing year.
4. Why These Fires Are So Dangerous
Zombie fires are far more destructive than regular wildfires in terms of climate damage. They burn deeper, longer, and release far more greenhouse gases per square meter. They also destroy the soil itself, not just surface vegetation. Once peat is burned away, the land collapses, floods, and becomes permanently damaged.
These fires also release thick toxic smoke that travels thousands of kilometers. In recent years, smoke from Arctic fires has darkened skies across North America and Europe. The people inhaling this smoke are often completely unaware that it came from burning ground near the North Pole.
5. The Arctic Is Heating Faster Than Earth Can Adapt
The Arctic is warming at a terrifying pace. Ice is melting. Snow cover is shrinking. Darker ground absorbs more heat. This speeds up warming even further. As temperatures rise, more land becomes fire-prone. This creates ideal conditions for zombie fires to spread across entire Arctic regions.
Fire season in the Arctic now lasts longer every year. Fires begin earlier in spring and continue later into autumn. In some areas, there is barely enough time for the land to recover before the next burning season begins.
6. A Global Climate Threat, Not a Local Problem
What burns in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. Carbon released from zombie fires circulates through the entire global atmosphere. The warming effect impacts oceans, deserts, cities, farms, and forests across the planet.
As global temperatures rise, extreme weather becomes more common — stronger storms, deeper droughts, and deadly heat waves. The Arctic’s underground fires are quietly feeding these disasters by constantly injecting new greenhouse gases into the air.
7. The Illusion of Extinguishing These Fires
Firefighters can put out surface flames with water and aircraft. But zombie fires burn underground, often meters below the surface. Reaching them requires digging through frozen, unstable ground — a nearly impossible task across vast wilderness areas.
In many cases, authorities simply have to wait until the fires resurface months later. By then, they may have grown stronger and spread wider. This makes zombie fires one of the hardest natural disasters on Earth to control.
8. Wildlife, Indigenous Communities, and Silent Destruction
Zombie fires destroy grazing lands, forests, and migration routes for Arctic animals. Reindeer, birds, and small mammals lose both habitat and food sources. Entire ecosystems weaken year after year.
Indigenous communities who have lived in these regions for generations face polluted air, unstable land, contaminated water, and rising health risks. Their traditional lifestyles become harder to sustain as the land itself becomes unreliable.
9. The Frightening Future If This Continues
If zombie fires continue increasing, scientists fear that large portions of the Arctic could enter a permanent burn cycle. This would turn the region into a continuous source of atmospheric carbon — even without human industry or combustion.
This would push the planet closer to extreme, irreversible climate states. Ice sheet collapse, massive sea level rise, widespread heat disasters, food shortages, and mass displacement would follow.
Final Bitter Truth
Zombie fires reveal something deeply unsettling: Earth itself is beginning to burn from the inside. These underground fires are not started by volcanoes or natural climate cycles alone — they are being unlocked by human-driven warming.
The most frightening part is that zombie fires do not rage loudly for the world to see. They smolder quietly beneath frozen ground, growing stronger in the dark. By the time their full impact becomes visible to everyone, the climate damage they cause may already be impossible to undo.
