Europe’s heating climate sparks ‘major intensification’ of fires: Report

What the report says

Al Jazeera, citing AFP and Reuters, reported that a new study in the journal Scientific Reports finds southern Europe is facing a sharp rise in weather conditions that make wildfires more likely. Researchers said the number of summer days with fire-favouring combinations of extreme heat, dry air, drought and strong winds has more than doubled since 1981, with climate change identified as the driver. Study co-author Raul Cordero said the scale of the increase could only be linked to global warming.

The report comes during another severe wildfire season in Europe. Al Jazeera said France and Spain have recently fought some of their largest fires on record, although cooler conditions and rain helped ease the immediate threat on Thursday. French authorities allowed 84,000 evacuees in the southwest to return home as the country’s biggest wildfire since 1949 retreated. Spain ended a national emergency after major fires near Madrid, described as the largest since records began in 1961, started coming under control.

The fire risk was shifting east as high temperatures moved across the region. In Greece, officials reported three firefighter deaths linked to blazes on Crete and in the Peloponnese, with strong winds worsening conditions. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned of difficult days ahead. Turkiye was also dealing with widespread fires, while eastern England saw evacuations and road closures from a large blaze at Dunwich Heath, a protected biodiversity site.

The findings matter because they connect Europe’s escalating fire seasons to longer-term warming trends, suggesting that emergency planning, land management and climate adaptation will become increasingly central to public safety across the continent.