The world could see a "particularly severe year" of wildfires fueled by climate change and a potentially strong El Nino weather phenomenon after a record-breaking first few months of 2026, researchers warned Tuesday. "This year the global fire season has got off to a very fast start," said Theodore Keeping, an extreme weather researcher at Imperial College London, who is part of World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of climate scientists. Wildfires have scorched 50% more than the average for this time of year, and the current area burnt by wildfires globally is more than 20% higher than the previous record set since tracking began in 2012, he said. Record-breaking burn areas have been observed in almost all countries in West Africa and the Sahel region. "Overall, 85 million hectares [around 328,000 square miles] have burned in Africa this year, compared to the previous record of 69 million hectares," Keeping said.…