More than 1,015,024 hectares have burned across the EU in 2025, surpassing the previous record and marking the worst year on record with weeks of dangerous fire weather remaining. Fires have emptied villages, forced farmers to fight blazes, charred homes, blackened forests and sent smoke to distant cities. The blazes released about 37 million tonnes of CO2 and set records for nine other air pollutants, including PM2.5. Perfect conditions for large, dangerous wildfires are increasing due to climate change and changing land use. A prolonged heatwave amplified by fossil fuel pollution dried vegetation, enabling hotter, faster-spreading fires.
Wildfires ravaging the EU have torched more than 1m hectares this year, marking 2025 as the worst year on record, a full month before the fire season ends. Deadly infernos that have emptied out villages and forced farmers to become firefighters have engulfed four times as much land this year as the average for the same period over the past two decades, according to official data that was updated on Friday and may be revised further.
The destructive blazes have pumped out 37m tonnes of carbon dioxide about as much as the yearly CO2 emissions of Portugal or Sweden, each home to 10 million people. The fires have also broken records for this time of year for nine other air pollutants, including fine particulates known as PM2.5 that experts say make wildfires far more deadly than previously thought.
Collection
[
|
...
]