Estimation of carbon storage loss and its economic value caused by a megafire

In March 2025, a megafire in Uiseong spread across five counties in Gyeongsangbuk-do and became the largest wildfire recorded in South Korea. This study presents a rapid, spatially explicit framework combining the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) carbon storage model with remote sensing to estimate immediate wildfire-driven carbon storage loss and its economic implications. Pre-fire aboveground carbon storage was modeled with InVEST, and fire severity was classified from satellite-based relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR). To account for spatial variation in fire effects, two scenarios incorporating burn-severity-dependent residual fractions were applied instead of a uniform national inventory factor. Pre-fire aboveground carbon storage was estimated at 18.6 MtC. Post-fire carbon storage loss was estimated at 3.85–5.66 MtC across the two scenarios, equivalent to a 21–30% reduction in the pre-fire stock and an average loss of 134–196 tCO₂ /ha across the burned area. Expressed as CO₂ units from molecular-weight ratio, the storage loss reached 14.1–20.7 MtCO₂, corresponding to an estimated economic value of 124–182 billion Korean Won (KRW) based on the 2025 average allowance price in the Korean Emissions Trading Scheme. This amount is equivalent to 37–55% of Korea’s annual net removals from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) reported for 2022, indicating that a single megafire can substantially undermine national carbon-neutrality efforts. This approach provides a practical basis for damage assessment, disturbance-related carbon accounting, risk-informed restoration and carbon policy.