Experts say drought and extreme high temperatures likely to make it a record year for destruction by fires
, an area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium has been ravaged by flames as successive searing heatwaves and a historic drought propel the continent towards what experts say is likely to be a record year for wildfire destruction., 659,541 hectares of land burned across the continent between January and mid-August, the most at this time of year since records began in 2006.
The figure is 56% higher than the previous record in 2017. Then, 420,913 hectares burned over the same period, and 988,087 were consumed by the end of the year. On present trends, more than 1m hectares could be lost to wildfires this year. The total land area burned across Europe so far this year is double the 2006-2021 average, the Effis data shows, while the cumulative number of fires is more than four times the average over the same period.
“The situation in terms of drought and extremely high temperatures has affected all Europe this year and the overall situation in the region is worrying, while we are still in the middle of the fire season,” said the Effis coordinator, Jesús San-Miguel. While fire seasons in the EU are historically “driven mainly by countries in the Mediterranean region”, since 2010 fires have been blazing in central and northern countries that “normally do not experience fires in their territory”, he told Agence France-Presse.. More than 60,000 hectares have burned in France, half as much again as the 43,600 it lost in the whole of 2019, its previous record.