There was a lower-than-average number of wildfires in 2020 despite hotspots such as California and Australia being hit by blazes of unprecedented intensity, the European Union's satellite monitoring service said Monday.

A year of data collected by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) showed that carbon emissions from fires were set to be lower than previous years and that 2020 was one of the lowest years for active fires globally.