With at least a month left for summer to end in most of Europe, some of the countries, which were already affected by heat wave conditions this year, are now facing wildfires at a pace unseen in the recent past.
France and Spain are the most affected. As of last week, 91,209 hectares have been destroyed by wildfires in France, which already surpasses the total area burned due to forest fires in the country in a year at least since 1980.
As per the Forest Fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa 2024 report brought out by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, 75,566 hectares of land which got burnt in 1989 was the previous record.
The extent of the impact of the wildfires is likely to go up significantly in France in the coming days.
The heat wave conditions and the forest fires are seen as symptomatic of Europe’s rising temperatures, attributed to climate change.
The effects of climate change
The fire in the Bordeaux region is shaping up to be the biggest forest fire France has seen. According to multiple media reports, the fire has already burnt through 42,000 hectares of pine forest, destroyed 240 homes, spread close to densely populated areas, with the smoke reaching up to 400 km away.
This has also led to the highest number of people who have been shifted in a single instance to safe locations due to natural disasters. According to the Associated Press, more than 2.2 lakh people have been temporarily relocated. Data show that the Bordeaux fire displaced more people than those displaced in wildfires over the past five years combined, which amounts to about 61,000 persons, as per the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
The total cumulative annual carbon emissions of the 2026 fires — 300 kilotonnes of carbon — has already surpassed the extreme emissions recorded in 2022 and 2003, according to the World Weather Association (WWA).
The area burnt due to wildfires in the European Union from the beginning of June till June 29, 2026 has already exceeded the total area affected by wildfires over the last 10 years. Spain is also witnessing widespread destruction. Around 1.9 lakh hectares of land has been burnt in Spain since June, which is the second highest since 2022.
According to the WWA, the most severe fires are in southwestern France and central and eastern Spain. The map shows the regions affected by forest fires in France this year compared to the previous year. The report of the WWA states that the affected area in France and Spain received above-average rainfall in the winter, which led to the promotion of vegetation growth. These conditions were followed by record-high temperatures, which depleted soil moisture and increased water stress in shrubs and pine trees. These conditions increased the likelihood of the rapid spread of wildfires.
Europe has become the world’s fastest-warming continent outside the Arctic. Average temperatures over successive decades show Europe moving from 1.08 degree Celsius below the 1991-2020 average in the decade ending 1955 to 0.87 degree Celsius above it in the decade ending 2025. During the same period, Europe warmed faster than every other continent except the Arctic, outpacing Asia, North America, Africa and the global average.
Source: European Forest Fire Information System, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
Published - August 03, 2026 08:00 am IST