A Summer of Extremes Set the Conditions for Europe’s Wildfires

The wildfires torching Spain and France are a culmination of Western Europe’s extreme summer, in which record-setting heat waves and dry conditions set the stage for vast areas that could easily ignite.

Though it is difficult to connect a single wildfire to global warming, scientists said broiling temperatures last month, which hit both Spain and France, were made likelier because of the burning of fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s pre-eminent climate science body, said in 2021 that “fire weather” would likely increase across the Mediterranean over the course of the century.

In general, wildfires are closely linked to heat and drought, which sap grasses and forests of moisture. Those conditions allow for fires to spread more quickly — if there is a spark.

“Let me call it the drying out of the European continent,” said Johann Georg Goldammer, the director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center, in Freiburg, Germany. “The vegetation is suffering from this heat and drought stress. And this is accumulating.”

The wildfires were “absolutely” connected to the earlier weather extremes, he said on Saturday.

In western France, firefighters have battled flames in the same area that was a center of earlier heat waves. The city of Bordeaux, where thousands have evacuated from the suburbs, faced its hottest stretch on record in late June, with temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) three days in a row.

Since June 1, Bordeaux has had 20 days with highs of at least 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to five over the same period last year. It has rained only three days, never more than slightly.

Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service. Copernicus also reported “widespread dry conditions” and soil moisture well below average in Spain and France.

Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said that the heat waves, coupled with warm European waters, posed “growing risks for people, ecosystems and infrastructure.”

To that end, across Europe — the world’s fastest-warming continent — those risks are now playing out in many ways. The Danube River recently reached its lowest water levels in 30 years, partly disrupting shipping. This month, low levels on the Rhine forced cargo ships to cut loads. The Netherlands has declared a water shortage, and much of France is facing water restrictions.

And then there are the fires.

According to the European Forest Fire Information System, France has already recorded its most fires and largest burned area of the last 20 summers. Between 2006 and 2015, France saw 15 fires in a typical year. This year, it has recorded 312 fires, with more than 70,000 hectares burned, and weeks left in summer.

Spain had one of its worst recent fire seasons last year. This year’s destruction is roughly 40 percent of last year’s. Normally, in Europe, wildfire risk is most intense in mid-July and August.

In 2021, the European Environment Agency said that the average yearly burned area in the Mediterranean had decreased slightly since the 1980s because of improved fire management. But, the agency said, wildfires were striking in parts of central and northern Europe “not typically prone to fires.”