Researchers warn ‘megafires’ will become Europe’s new normal

A risk assessment from Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in Global Change Biology, warns that 'megafires' are becoming an annual feature of European summers, including in wet northern forests, peat bogs and mountains not historically prone to burning.

This year alone, fires have swept France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Czechia, with more than half a million hectares burned across the EU so far — on pace to match or exceed last year's record 1.3 million hectares. Belgium's High Fens fire, its largest in a century, burned an area roughly half the size of Manhattan before being brought under control.

Researchers project wildfire activity could rise 39% under a likely 1.8°C warming scenario, worsened by rural depopulation leaving more overgrown land to burn. In response, the EU has roughly tripled its standby firefighting force since 2020, from under 200 to more than 700.

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