Wildfires have so far ravaged more than one million hectares of land in European Union countries this year, a record since recording began in 2006, according to AFP analysis of official data.
Surpassing the annual record of 988,524 hectares burnt in 2017, the figure reached 1,015,731 hectares on Thursday, an area larger than Cyprus.
This calculation is based on a total compiled by AFP from estimates by country from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), at a time when Spain and Portugal are still battling wildfires.
Four EU countries – Spain, Cyprus, Germany, and Slovakia – have already experienced their worst year in two decades of existing data, while, in France, 35,600 hectares of forest have been reduced to ashes, mostly in the southern Aude département, which was ravaged by a massive fire in early August.
Spain is struggling with numerous fires in the west of the country, which have claimed four lives. By far the most affected EU country by fires, with more than 400,000 hectares burnt, Spain accounts for nearly 40 percent of the EU total.
Portugal, which holds the unenviable EU record of 563,530 hectares burnt in 2017, is the second-most affected EU country. As of August 21st, it never before had an area of this size (nearly 274,000 hectares) burnt so early in the year. Romania follows with 126,000 hectares.
These calculations by EFFIS, a component of the European climate monitor Copernicus, only take into account fires that have burnt areas of at least 30 hectares.
Outside the EU, Britain is also experiencing a record year, following fires in April during an early heatwave, as well as in northern Scotland at the end of June.
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In the Balkans, Serbia is also recording its worst year since statistics began.
By August 19th, forest fires in 22 of the 27 EU countries had already emitted 35 megatons of CO2 since January, an unprecedented amount at this point in the year according to EFFIS, indicating the annual record set in 2017 of 41 megatons could be surpassed.
During the previous record year, in 2017, wildfires killed more than 200 people in the EU, notably in Portugal, Italy, Spain and France.
In 2025, the provisional EU death toll due to fires is 10, according to an AFP count: two people dead in Cyprus, one in France, and seven in the Iberian Peninsula.
