'Unprecedented' wildfires torch record area of EU land to date

Wildfires have torched a record amount of EU land this year, according to European Commission data, as one of its senior fire researchers warns that climate change is spreading the danger to more countries.

As of 17 August, more than 6,800 fires have together burned almost 750,000 hectares of land in the European Union, more than a third of the size of Wales, sending homes, crops, and livelihoods up in flames.

Both the number of fires and area burned exceed those from the same period in 2017, the most devastating year on record, when fires tore through more than one million hectares of land and more than 130 people lost their lives.

But in 2017 the most dramatic and deadly fires struck in October, so “we need to wait until the end of the year to see how the year evolves”, said Dr Jesus San-Miguel-Ayanz, senior researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and coordinator of the EFFIS wildfire monitoring system.

Persistent dry weather since winter, and early and recurring heatwaves from May, have “risen the fire danger to levels that we haven’t experienced in the past”, he said.

The fires are “really unprecedented”.

When dry and hot weather was forecast to continue into the summer, researchers “foresaw a complicated [wildfire] season”, but the reality has been “even more acute”, he said.

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Climate change has left parts of the Iberian peninsula at their driest in 1,200 years, according to a study published last
month in the Nature Geoscience journal.

In Portugal more than 1,200 firefighters and nine water bombing aircraft were today battling a wildfire that has been raging for weeks, while in Spain wildfires have already burned more than 275,000 hectares.

But climate breakdown is spreading the fire danger further north through Europe by disrupting rainfall patterns and driving up temperatures, explained Dr San-Miguel-Ayanz.

Fires this year in places as far north as the UK, Ireland and Norway are a “clear signal” that “areas that weren’t affected in the past are now affected”, he said.

However, better information and preparedness should reduce the casualties and damage wreaked by fires, he added.

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As trees and vegetation burn in wildfires, they release vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.

Normally, the emissions would only make a “small contribution” to the total of that country. But “in years like this one, the contribution can be up to a third of the total”, Dr San-Miguel-Ayanz warned.

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