After two decades studying wildfires across continents, and watching Europe burn every summer, I keep returning to the same uncomfortable conclusion: this is not a failure of the fire service or a government. It is a failure of society.
In this guest post, Professor Guillermo Rein peers into the near future to assess Europe preparations for the 2026 wildfire season, based on the historic recent wildfire seasons.
Wildfire activity was especially high in Portugal, Spain, southern France, southern Italy, Greece, Türkiye, Ukraine, and parts of the UK. Most fires over 5,000 ha (purple circles) occurred in the western Iberian Peninsula, though central and eastern Mediterranean areas were also affected. Smaller fires were widespread across continental Europe and Scandinavia, showing extensive wildfire risk and incidents in 2025.
In his extraordinary book ‘Collapse’, Jared Diamond offers a framework that is forensically useful. He describes four generic ways societies fail when facing existential challenges. Applied to European wildfires, the fit is disturbingly close. The four failures to anticipate, perceive, attempt or succeed.
I. Failure to anticipate. Europe did not anticipate a shift towards systematically more flammable landscapes. Slow fuel accumulation from rural abandonment, climate change, expanding built areas close to forests, the early stages of wildfire exclusion, and the disregard of hard international lessons from North America and Australia, were all treated as separate issues rather than as a comprehensive and evolving hazard.
II. Failure to perceive. Early signals from southern Europe were framed as exceptional summers or problems of disorderly countries, not as indicators of a changing wildfire regime. At the same time, public voices from independent scientists and practitioners were often ignored, sidelined, or dismissed as bizarre or alarmist, instead of recognised as the warnings.
III. Failure to attempt to solve. Once the destruction trend became visible, summer after summer, even in northern latitudes, action lagged and often lacked coherence. Landscape-scale forest management and protection of rural areas remained politically difficult. European research funding on wildfires arrived late, sometimes very late, and is frequently fragmented or poorly aligned with the realities of wildfire behaviour.
IV. Failure to succeed in solving. In the absence of a real understanding of the European wildfire problem, resources flowed mainly into suppression and firefighting. Suppression is only one layer of protection, the last resort, yet it was treated as the only solution. Prevention, detection, compartmentation, evacuation, and hardening of communities lagged behind, while wildfire destruction exceeded known levels.
The current situation reveals failures that accumulate quietly over decades.
If Europe wants to mitigate wildfire disasters and protect its citizens, it must stop asking how to fight more wildfires, and speed up asking how to understand and manage them better.
Guillermo Rein is a Professor of Fire Science at Imperial College, London. He created and leads the research group Imperial Hazelab.
Smoke Blankets the Iberian Peninsula, 15 Aug 2025. NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data
Scientists across Europe are currently developing a new tool aimed at allowing researchers, authorities, and media across the globe to easily access wildfire information.
Researchers are working to develop the “Fire Front Radar” to meet public safety, air quality, and environmental management challenges as climate change continues to intensify wildfires. The tool was unveiled as part of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ “Code for Earth” program, which acts as an annual catalyst for innovation in climate and atmospheric science, according to the website of Europe’s Earth observation program Copernicus.
The “Fire Front Radar” project will allow people to use an interactive world map to analyze time series, assess fire risk across multiple timescales, and generate regional visualizations once it finishes development, a press release from the Centre said. The tool will build on existing data from the Centre and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.
“As global temperatures rise and vegetation drys out, the conditions for extreme wildfires are even more common and are turning what were once manageable events into major disasters with people being displaced,” said Lucy Colley, one of the participants in the project, at a presentation on the project. “Because the app is using probability indices, we are hoping to provide more insight into foreseeing and eventually planning for such events.”
The tool will also support trend analysis, data downloads, custom overlays, and report generation to turn complex datasets into clear and actionable insights, according to the Centre’s press release.
“Fire Front Radar establishes an effective and flexible platform for understanding the environmental conditions behind wildfire emissions that we monitor in CAMS, it is a tool that will provide extra context in my day-to-day work on wildfire emissions and their impacts on global atmospheric composition and air quality,” according to CAMS Senior Scientist Mark Parrington.
A new era of wildfire mitigation and prevention in the European Union has been defined by two new wide-ranging reports, with the added support of a new global agreement with similar objectives.
• A report by the European Academies Science Advisory Board presented in Brussels on May 19 calls for an integrated European Union framework for landscape fire risk governance and the prioritisation of prevention.
• The European Academies report followed the publication in April of a proposal by Firelogue – a coalition of research projects – for an integrated wildfire risk management strategy.
• And on June 17, G7 leaders and guests meeting in Canada signed the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter, endorsing that nations adopt a whole-of-society approach to wildland fire, focus on prevention, leverage research, and build shared capacity to mitigate and respond.
The European Academies report, Changing Wildfires: Policy Options for a Fire-Literate and Fire-adapted Europe, synthesises state-of-the-art fire science and argues that forest ecosystems and European citizens will be exposed soon to a growing wildfire risk. The report recommends the articulation of policies, actively managing forests, and educating and engaging communities.
Already wildfires in the European Union burn, on average, half a million hectares yearly – almost twice the size of Luxembourg. In 2025, almost 1 million hectares burned.
Worked on by 23 scientists nominated by their respective national science academies, the report highlights the complex drivers behind the surge in wildfire risk.
Amplified by climate change, the drivers tie down to rural depopulation and land use changes. As droughts and declining summer rainfall are predicted to double the fire hazard by 2100, rural abandonment of farmland and unmanaged vegetation growth have created vast landscapes of flammable biomass.
The report notes the firefighting trap or paradox – the over-reliance on fire suppression rather than fuels and land management exacerbates future fires – argues that fire suppression alone is not sufficient, and questions the efficacy of EU policies for their overwhelming focus on fire suppression and emergency response.
The report presents European political bodies with eight recommendations:
1. Invest in integrated wildfire risk reduction, including prescribed burning and fuel management.
2. Implement nature-based solutions such as grazing and native species reforestation.
3. Embrace the role of fire allowing planned burns to maintain ecological balance.
4. Invest in education and communication to increase “fire literacy” and preparedness.
5. Invest in landscape management to reduce vulnerability, design and maintain resilient landscape that reduces wildfire risks.
6. Harmonise sectoral policies across agriculture, environment, and urban development to reduce conflicts and risks.
7. Promote compact urban development to limit wildland-urban interface expansion.
8. Encourage sustainable private land management to help landowners adopt fire resilient practices.
While the Mediterranean remains Europe’s highest-risk region, the report warns that a continental fire crisis is brewing, and Alpine and Boreal regions must also prepare for a new era of fire.
“The changing regime with larger, more intense blazes is driven not only by weather, but also by structural socio-ecological shifts,” said Orsolya Valkó, co-chair of the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council’s wildfires working group, in a statement in May.
“Many new areas, such as Central Europe and rapidly warming mountainous areas, will probably be exposed to severe fire weather. This marks a fundamental shift with major consequences for environmental and public safety.”
Firelogue – the coalition of research projects – supports wider calls for an integrated European wildfire risk management strategy.
“Following the example of Portugal, we propose that the creation of a strategy should include some key elements such as the creation of an Inter-agency at the EU level, to work transversally with the various agencies and European Commission directorates (DGs) to operationalise the implementation of inter-agency articulation and coordination, to avoid overlaps and gaps,” the Firelogue report says.
“Also, several of the measures proposed in this document concern the activities of some of these agencies including, for example [Directorate-General Environment, Directorate-General Climate, Directorate General European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support]. In line with this, we also advocate the implementation of a European Wildfire Management Directive as a regulatory framework to guide wildfire risk management activities.”
Building a handtool fire line and checking its effectiveness in Northen Portugal in 2016. Photo: Tiago Oliveira
The Kananaskis Wildfire Charter means that G7 nations –Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – in addition to guest participants Australia, Mexico, India, the Republic of Korea, and South Africa, will move to integrated fire management and high hopes expressed by the G7 for the United Nations Global Fire Management Hub initiative, which is expected to play a pivotal role in fire-era diplomacy.
For the European Union in particular, the way forward is about interoperability, incident command system-based qualifications, common procedures and operational standards, and also the use of knowledge and science to better determine expansion of fire use as a tool in sustainable forest management, nature-based solutions, and Indigenous land management practices including cultural fire risk reduction measures around communities, buildings, and Infrastructure”
To be fire-literate and fire-adapted in Europe, as recommended in the May 19 report, challenges institutions and politicians. The 2023 Landscape Fire Governance Framework, which brings together governments, businesses, academia, and members of civil society to develop and implement balanced and technically supported solutions to landscape fire management, might be helpful for European institutions and decision makers to improve cooperation among civil protection and forest and conservation agendas and organizations, assuring that the pursued objectives are tackled and best practices are adopted.
Tiago Oliveira
Tiago Oliveira is a PhD and forest engineer with 30 years of experience in national and international activities specialized in the topics of wildland fire risk management and governance. Oliveria was appointed by the prime minister in the aftermath of the 2017 wildfire season to lead the creation of the Integrated Rural Fire Management System in Portugal. He has been chairman of the board of the Portuguese Agency for Integrated Rural Fire Management since January 2019 and is the former head of the Department of Innovation and Forestry Development (2016-2017) at The Navigator Company. Oliveria was head of forest protection, responsible for fire prevention and suppression operational programs and R&D projects, from 2008 to 2016. Oliveria is has been a member of the IAWF board since 2023.
Two medium engines from a private wildland firefighting company, holding a line during the 2015 fire season near Porto in Portugal. Photo: Tiago Oliveira
The nation, on average, only sees around 15,000 burnt acres (6,000 hectares) by Aug. 19, according to the European Union’s Earth observation arm. So far in 2025, the nation has experienced 437,000 burnt acres (177,000 hectares).
Spain’s totals have skewed wildfire data throughout the EU. Officials on Tuesday said wildfires have burned 2,389,573 acres (967,026 hectares) since the beginning of the year. That is much more than the average of 602,964 acres (244,011 hectares) recorded at this time of year over the past 19 years.
Spain and surrounding nations may soon see some relief from fire weather, while others in northern Europe see an increase in risk, according to the EU’s Joint Research Centre.
“Conditions are expected to ease across most of southern Europe and FWI anomalies may drop in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, the Balkans, and Greece,” the Centre said. “In contrast, very high to very extreme anomalies are expected in Ireland, United Kingdom, and Northwest Europe (Belgium, The Netherlands, northern Germany, Poland, Denmark and parts of Sweden and Finland). Large with high to very extreme FWI anomalies are also expected along the Danube basin in Austria, Hungary, and Romania.”
Spain recently made EU history when it made its first request ever for wildfire response reinforcements from the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism. In response to Spain’s activation, the European Commission has mobilized two rescEU planes stationed in France, with the expectation of deploying to Spain on Aug. 14.
Fires in Europe are raging close to record levels with little prospect of relief in coming days. With temperatures of more than 40C/104F fueling a heatwave in many areas, the fires are driving evacuations across southern European regions including Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and the Balkans.
Active fires across Europe 13 August 2025. Source: European Forest Fire Information System
As at 12 August, a total of 1599 fires larger than 30 hectares/74 acres have been recorded since the beginning of this year. Last year 1089 fires were detected over the same period. The area burnt is 409,220 hectares/1,011,204 acres. Last year in the same period the area burnt was 188,643 hectares/466,147 acres. The year is tracking towards a record season, according to data from the European Forest Fires Information System of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service.
Burnt area in Europe at 12 August 2025.
The long hot summer is set to continue with the fire danger forecast period predicting Extreme to Very Extreme conditions across the whole continent. Most of Portugal, Spain and France are in a particularly dangerous period, but other less fire prone regions are also on alert – southern United Kingdom, and parts of Sweden, Norway and Finland.
Heatwave temperatures, drought and decades of poor forest management are producing an extreme wildfire season across Europe into July.
More than 230,000 hectares have been burnt by wildfires across Europe so far this year, according to the EU’s European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). As of 15 July, the cumulative total of scorched land stands at 230,049 hectares – 119 per cent above the long-term average of 106,587 hectares for this time of the year. A total of 1203 fires larger than 30 hectares have been detected, compared to 783 this time last year, which was closer to an average year for wildfire.
Early July saw multiple fires involving evacuations of thousands of residents in areas including Turkiye where three lives were lost, Catalonia with two deaths, Crete, Scotland and around Marseille in France. Ireland issued a rare Condition Red Forest Fire Warning, its highest level of Fire Danger.
From mid-July, the focus has been on northern Europe and Scandinavia, and southern European regions around the Mediterranean.
Two wildfires burning in Scotland merged, creating the nation’s largest recorded wildfire event, according to the Scottish Wildfire Forum.
The fires, one burning near Carrbridge and the other near Dava moor, occurred between June 28 and July 1. The fires burned a total of 24,087 acres (9,752 hectares) and had a perimeter length of 157 miles (253 kilometers). The burned land included 21,529 acres (8,716 hectares) of moorland and peatland and 2,559 acres (1,036 hectares) of forest.
“The fires threatened homes and damaged moors, forests, peatland and farming infrastructure such as fences,” the forum said in a press release. “Smoke was an issue over a wide area. Many roads in the area had to be closed and residents were advised to close windows and doors on public health grounds. The Local Resilience Partnership, where multi-agency responses to such incidents are managed, held daily meetings.”
Scottish Land & Estates, a rural business association, said numerous businesses and estates helped government officials respond to the fire, including over 100 employees and £3.1 million in firefighting equipment. The association also sent a questionnaire out to all estates affected by the fire, seeking information on the fire’s spread and local impacts.
A report from the association found that more than 110 ATVs, fogging units, tractors, diggers, water bowsers and other assets were deployed by local businesses and estates. Several “near-miss” incidents also occurred, according to the report.
“The Scottish Wildfire Forum is deeply grateful to all those who were involved in bringing these difficult fires under control,” the forum said. “The SFRS crews alongside the expertise and dedication of keepers, foresters and farmers who work in our rural landscapes, fought for several days to ensure the fires were extinguished. People travelled great distances to bring their resources to bear. Locals volunteered and donated huge quantities of food and drinks. Our thanks go to all.”
At least nine Erickson Air-Cranes photographed together for the first time. October, 2021 in Greece. Photo by Dimitris Klagos. (According to a report from Erickson, there may have been 10 Air-Cranes at the site.)
Climate change, increasing wildfires, and Russia’s war in Ukraine are combining to put unusual stresses on governments, especially in Europe. When wildfires become numerous or very large, threatening large numbers of residents, many countries will mobilize military units. They may use helicopters to drop water or transport firefighters or trucks to assist with logistics. The United States has eight Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems (MAFFS) that can be quickly loaded into military C-130s to drop retardant on fires. Soldiers on the ground can be transformed from warfighters to firefighters.
This year was the hottest summer on record in Europe. It followed what what is now the second hottest summer on the continent. During the worst drought in centuries wildfires burned about 50 percent more acres than the previous record set in 2017.
The Washington Post has an article about how the war is affecting countries in Europe, in this case Slovenia, that need to both fight wildfires as the climate changes and bolster the military as international tensions mount.
“There will be these disasters of fires or floods. It will be more and more common,” Defense Minister Marjan Šarec said in an interview. “We must spend our money for everything that is needed. Because safety has no price.”
“It’s not a dilemma of cannons or butter,” said Šarec, who has also been a volunteer firefighter. “As a serious country we must do both.”
But military leaders say the dual-headed challenge can sometimes be significant, and even contradictory.
“Our training is going on in a military way. Exercises. How to use military equipment, how to fight, how to protect. How to defend,” said Glavaš, the head of Slovenia’s military command. “When you stop this training and you go to civilian tasks you need to focus your mind from fighting to something else. It’s very hard sometimes.”
He said that fighting fires “definitely” had an impact on combat readiness.
Currently the European Union coordinates and funds the deployment of 12 fixed wing firefighting airplanes and one helicopter pooled by EU countries. Fire Aviation reported in July that the EU plans to purchase additional air tankers.
The European Commission issued a press release on Oct. 5, 2022 confirming they are proposing to spend €170 million from the EU budget to reinforce its rescEU ground and aerial assets in the summer of 2023. The rescEU transitional fleet would then have a total of 22 planes, 4 helicopters as well as more pre-positioned ground teams. Beginning in 2025, the fleet would be further reinforced through an accelerated procurement of airplanes and helicopters.
The Washington Post reported that Slovenian defense leaders decided this month to cancel a $343 million purchase of armored troop carriers asthey contemplate buying more aircraft that could be used to fight fires.
Gérald Moussa Darmanin, France’s Minister of the Interior, said recently, “We want to increase the number of Canadair [water scooping air tankers] in our own fleet from twelve to sixteen. But the problem is not to buy them, it is to produce them. Today there are no longer any factories that do so.”
The CL-415 water scooping air tanker has been out of production for years, but De Havilland, which now owns the rights to the aircraft, announced on September 21 the planned construction of a huge aircraft manufacturing facility east of Calgary, Alberta. They expect to employ 1,500 workers to produce at least three lines of aircraft — DHC-515 (a modernized variant of the CL-415), DHC-6 Twin Otter, and Dash 8-400 (Q400).
An announcement from De Havilland said, “European customers have signed letters of intent to purchase the first 22 aircraft pending the positive outcome of government-to-government negotiations through the Government of Canada’s contracting agency, the Canadian Commercial Corporation. De Havilland Canada expects first deliveries of the DHC-515 [water scooping air tanker] by the middle of the decade, with deliveries of additional aircraft to begin at the end of the decade, providing other customers the opportunity to renew existing fleets or proceed with new acquisition opportunities at that time.”
In the near term it does not seem likely that European countries are going to be able to find and purchase dozens of purpose-built air tankers to meet their needs.
Before this year many of the firefighting aircraft typically used in Western Europe and the Middle East during the summer were contracted from Russia. With the war and sanctions that source has virtually dried up.
The Helicopter Investor reported that in April the Portuguese government expelled a team of Russian mechanics working on three of their Russian made Kamov helicopters, and shut down the hangar in Ponte de Sor where the maintenance crew was working. In 2006 the government spent €348 million to buy six Kamov Ka-32A helicopters which could transport personnel and drop water, but over the last 10 years have had difficulty keeping them airworthy. In January none of the six were operational.
The Portuguese Air Force has signed an agreement to purchase six Blackhawk helicopters outfitted for fighting wildfires. The aircraft will be supplied by Arista Aviation Services, a US-based firm which specializes in modernizing surplus US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Delivery of the first two is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.
For a number of years Erickson Inc. has contracted their firefighting Air-Crane helicopters to European governments. In 2021 Columbia Helicopters had Columbia Model 234 Chinook’s on contract in Turkey. Single engine air tankers regularly make the migration between South America and Europe as the fire season switches hemispheres.
At least nine Erickson Air-Cranes photographed together for the first time. October, 2021 in Greece. Photo by Dimitris Klagos. (According to a report from Erickson, there may have been 10 Air-Cranes at the site.)
Climate change, increasing wildfires, and Russia’s war in Ukraine are combining to put unusual stresses on governments, especially in Europe. When wildfires become numerous or very large, threatening large numbers of residents, many countries will mobilize military units. They may use helicopters to drop water or transport firefighters or trucks to assist with logistics. The United States has eight Modular Airborne FireFighting Systems (MAFFS) that can be quickly loaded into military C-130s to drop retardant on fires. Soldiers on the ground can be transformed from warfighters to firefighters.
This year was the hottest summer on record in Europe. It followed what what is now the second hottest summer on the continent. During the worst drought in centuries wildfires burned about 50 percent more acres than the previous record set in 2017.
The Washington Post has an article about how the war is affecting countries in Europe, in this case Slovenia, that need to both fight wildfires as the climate changes and bolster the military as international tensions mount.
“There will be these disasters of fires or floods. It will be more and more common,” Defense Minister Marjan Šarec said in an interview. “We must spend our money for everything that is needed. Because safety has no price.”
“It’s not a dilemma of cannons or butter,” said Šarec, who has also been a volunteer firefighter. “As a serious country we must do both.”
But military leaders say the dual-headed challenge can sometimes be significant, and even contradictory.
“Our training is going on in a military way. Exercises. How to use military equipment, how to fight, how to protect. How to defend,” said Glavaš, the head of Slovenia’s military command. “When you stop this training and you go to civilian tasks you need to focus your mind from fighting to something else. It’s very hard sometimes.”
He said that fighting fires “definitely” had an impact on combat readiness.
Currently the European Union coordinates and funds the deployment of 12 fixed wing firefighting airplanes and one helicopter pooled by EU countries. Fire Aviation reported in July that the EU plans to purchase additional air tankers.
The European Commission issued a press release on Oct. 5, 2022 confirming they are proposing to spend €170 million from the EU budget to reinforce its rescEU ground and aerial assets in the summer of 2023. The rescEU transitional fleet would then have a total of 22 planes, 4 helicopters as well as more pre-positioned ground teams. Beginning in 2025, the fleet would be further reinforced through an accelerated procurement of airplanes and helicopters.
The Washington Post reported that Slovenian defense leaders decided this month to cancel a $343 million purchase of armored troop carriers asthey contemplate buying more aircraft that could be used to fight fires.
Gérald Moussa Darmanin, France’s Minister of the Interior, said recently, “We want to increase the number of Canadair [water scooping air tankers] in our own fleet from twelve to sixteen. But the problem is not to buy them, it is to produce them. Today there are no longer any factories that do so.”
The CL-415 water scooping air tanker has been out of production for years, but De Havilland, which now owns the rights to the aircraft, announced on September 21 the planned construction of a huge aircraft manufacturing facility east of Calgary, Alberta. They expect to employ 1,500 workers to produce at least three lines of aircraft — DHC-515 (a modernized variant of the CL-415), DHC-6 Twin Otter, and Dash 8-400 (Q400).
An announcement from De Havilland said, “European customers have signed letters of intent to purchase the first 22 aircraft pending the positive outcome of government-to-government negotiations through the Government of Canada’s contracting agency, the Canadian Commercial Corporation. De Havilland Canada expects first deliveries of the DHC-515 [water scooping air tanker] by the middle of the decade, with deliveries of additional aircraft to begin at the end of the decade, providing other customers the opportunity to renew existing fleets or proceed with new acquisition opportunities at that time.”
In the near term it does not seem likely that European countries are going to be able to find and purchase dozens of purpose-built air tankers to meet their needs.
Before this year many of the firefighting aircraft typically used in Western Europe and the Middle East during the summer were contracted from Russia. With the war and sanctions that source has virtually dried up.
The Helicopter Investor reported that in April the Portuguese government expelled a team of Russian mechanics working on three of their Russian made Kamov helicopters, and shut down the hangar in Ponte de Sor where the maintenance crew was working. In 2006 the government spent €348 million to buy six Kamov Ka-32A helicopters which could transport personnel and drop water, but over the last 10 years have had difficulty keeping them airworthy. In January none of the six were operational.
The Portuguese Air Force has signed an agreement to purchase six Blackhawk helicopters outfitted for fighting wildfires. The aircraft will be supplied by Arista Aviation Services, a US-based firm which specializes in modernizing surplus US Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Delivery of the first two is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.
For a number of years Erickson Inc. has contracted their firefighting Air-Crane helicopters to European governments. In 2021 Columbia Helicopters had Columbia Model 234 Chinook’s on contract in Turkey. Single engine air tankers regularly make the migration between South America and Europe as the fire season switches hemispheres.
Weather forecast, Europe, for July 18, 2022. WeatherOnlne. For reference, 40C is 104F, and 35C is 95F.
As Western Europe enters its second heat wave in the last 30 days the maximum temperatures are predicted to set records. Residents in the United Kingdom could experience conditions none of them have ever seen as the temperature rises to 104F degrees (40C) or more, prompting officials to issue the first ever red “extreme heat” warning for Monday and Tuesday.
Farther south in Europe, in southwest France on Saturday there were temperature peaks of close to 108F (42C), as the city of Biarritz broke a maximum temperature record. Nearly three-quarters of the country’s population, 45 million people, were affected by red or orange heat alerts in what is the earliest heat wave ever recorded in France.
The hot, dry weather has resulted in numerous wildfires in Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France over the last several days, bringing an earlier than usual start of the fire season. Firefighters in London, yes, London, have dealt with more than 800 vegetation fires since the start of last month to July 12.
Firefighters work on a wildfire in the Bordeaux region of southwest France. AP.
Two blazes near the coastal town of Arcachon in France’s southwest Gironde region have burned more than 24,000 acres since Tuesday. About 3,000 firefighters assisted by firefighting aircraft are battling the blazes in southern France.
On Friday a pilot was killed while working on a fire in Northeast Portugal when an Air Tractor AT-802AF Fire Boss went down near the town of Torre de Moncorvo after scooping water on the Douro river.
Spain is also working on several large fires that have burned tens of thousands of acres. In southern Andalusia, 3,000 people were evacuated after a fire started near the village of Mijas in the province of Malaga. Around 200 firefighters supported by 18 aircraft are assigned to the incident.
BBC weather forecaster Ben Rich.
BBC weather forecaster Ben Rich explained that the current heat wave is caused by the jet stream shifting north and a portion of it breaking off to form a low pressure area west of Portugal, a cutoff low, with south winds pumping heat north into Western Europe including Spain, France and the UK.
Combined drought indicator last 10 days in June, 2022. European Commission’s Drought Observatory..
Much of Western Europe and the southern UK are in drought ranging from warning to alert levels, according to the European Commission’s Drought Observatory. The dry soils allow more surface heating and the result is record-setting temperatures and lower than average moisture in the vegetation, establishing conditions that are conducive to large wildfires with high resistance to control.
The video below is a summary of current wildfires in Western Europe.
