Sun Flares

The Sun Flares were an abnormal, apocalyptic event that occurred about 15 years before the events of The Maze Runner. Massive solar flares ravaged the planet and turned the area between the two Tropics, Cancer and Capricorn, into the wastelands known as The Scorch. Billions of humans died in this catastrophic event due to fires, extreme heat, radiation, and tsunamis from rising sea levels caused by polar ice caps melting rapidly. The Sun Flares also caused severe changes in the Earth's weather, such as high temperatures years past their first occurrence, and violent lightning storms such as in The Scorch Trials.

Shortly after the Sun Flares came, a group of people released a deadly virus in South Carolina for the purpose of population control since the planet was overcrowded and the small resources left on the planet after the Sun Flares wouldn't last. Because the virus was released at the same time as the Flares, the virus came to be known as the Flare. The Flare was originally thought to painlessly kill the victim in the brain, but it was seen at Ground Zero to change the way that the Being thought and reacted for the worse. People afflicted with the Flare were extremely violent and had a murderous rage to kill others, sometimes clawing themselves when in isolation. WICKED was founded in the hope that a cure could be created, as mentioned in The Maze Runner Files.

Trivia

• In the movies, the Sun Flares happened in the year 2136, however in the book they likely happened in 217. This places the movie world in a different timeline than the books.
• Also in the movies, it is confirmed that they happened in October.