Key Points

More than one million hectares have been destroyed by wildfires in the European Union so far this year, a surface area larger than the entirety of Corsica. This is over four times the land burned in 2024, Euro News stated. In total, the EU has recorded more than 1,800 forest fires, emitting over 38 million tonnes of COâ‚‚.

Among the 27 EU member states, only the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Malta reported no wildfires. At the top of the list, Italy and Romania recorded more than 450 blazes each. However, the countries that suffered the most damage were not always those with the highest number of fires. Cyprus, for example, reported only three fires, but they were particularly devastating.

Since January, Spain has lost more than 400,000 hectares to wildfires, while Portugal has lost over 260,000 hectares, equivalent to 3 per cent of Portugal's land mass and 0.8 per cent of Spain's, Euro News reported.

"Many of the fires we have monitored and observed are occurring where climate anomalies show that it is much drier than average and warmer than average," Mark Parrington, a scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather, told Euro News. "Where hot, dry winds are blowing, any ignition can ignite very quickly on a large scale and become very intense," he added.

Experts have warned that climate change is largely responsible for the aggressive wildfire season. Alexander Held, a fire management specialist at the European Forest Institute, said that several factors, including weather conditions, topography, vegetation, biomass, and fuel, are needed to spark a fire. "The prerequisite for everything to happen is the weather," Held told Euro News.

"Climate change scenarios provide the perfect envelope for all the other factors to work together to produce a perfect fire day or a perfect firestorm," he added, cautioning that such conditions are likely to become more common in the future, putting firefighting resources under increasing strain.

Held suggested that proactive landscape management is essential to help firefighters operate safely and efficiently. "Our fire-fighting system is reaching its limits, and the only thing we can do is prepare the landscape, making it more resilient and better prepared. That way, firefighters will have a chance to work safely and efficiently," he said.

Techniques to reduce fire risk include clearing vegetation, controlled burning, grazing, and agroforestry systems that combine agricultural production with trees, according to experts cited by Euro News.

- ANI