Record European fires burn more than 1.25 million acres over summer

More than 1,000 wildfires scorched roughly 1.33 million acres across the EU between mid-June and early September, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, an area more than twice the size of Luxembourg. Heat waves linked to climate change caused more than 30,000 excess deaths and drove widespread drought, with Spain and France seeing the heaviest displacement.

Four of the EU's 15 largest fires in a decade occurred this summer, including a blaze near Avila, Spain that burned over 103,800 acres and one in Huelva that became the sixth-largest ever recorded in Europe. Belgium suffered its worst wildfire in over a century, breaking its own annual burn record, while France and Spain each broke or nearly broke their national records for the year.

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