Since mid-June, some 540,000 hectares have gone up in smoke in the European Union following more than 1,000 fires. A season marked by records as summer approaches its end, according to satellite data from the European Effis system.
More than 80% of the approximately 647,000 hectares that have burned in the EU since the start of the year were caused by fires that broke out between June 18 and September 2, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis). An area that represents approximately nine times the size of the Spanish capital, Madrid, or 5,400 km2.
The total charred surfaces over this summer period are well above the average of the previous twenty years. However, it remains below the record of 2025, when fires then consumed more than 800,000 hectares, and that of summer 2007 with a few tens of thousands of hectares more, according to an AFP analysis of Effis data, going back to 2006. This year, the most devastating fires mainly occurred in July, while they occur more often in August.
Fires of exceptional magnitude
The fires, which broke out between July 16 and 22, consumed almost 190,000 hectares of forest, a record dating back to 2006 at least for this week in mid-July, according to harmonized weekly data from Effis. This also represents nearly 30% of the total areas burned since the start of the year.
It was during this period that three extraordinary fires broke out in succession: two in Spain and one in France. In the Spanish province of Ávila, near Madrid, the fire of July 22 ravaged more than 42,000 hectares. The same day, a mega fire near Bordeaux in Gironde destroyed 37,000 hectares of forest. In August, again in Spain, in the province of Huelva, 44,000 hectares went up in smoke. In total, four of the fifteen biggest fires of the last ten years occurred this summer, according to Effis data.
The north is not spared
The month of July was not yet over and France had already broken its record for areas burned over a full year since measurements began. As for Spain, it flirted with its record for the same period for several weeks. She even briefly beat him in mid-August before going back below.
Greece, Portugal and even Italy were also victims of fires like every summer in southern Europe. Although much less numerous, fires also broke out in the north, such as the fire of historic magnitude which devoured thousands of hectares in the east of Belgium in August, breaking its record for area burned over an entire year since 2006.
The Effis data only takes into account fires with an area of at least 30 hectares. They may diverge from the national data communicated due to methodological differences and the results also evolve as new images from space arrive. Exceptional drought and heat, intensified by climate change, fueled this summer’s destructive fires.
