The wildfires burning through Spain and France are the culmination of a brutal summer in Western Europe, where record heat waves and dry conditions set the stage for large areas that could burn easily.
Although it is difficult to link a single wildfire to global warming, scientists say that last month’s scorching temperatures, which hit Spain and France, were made worse by the burning of fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading climate science body, said by 2021 “fire weather” will increase across the Mediterranean during this century.
In general, wildfires are closely related to heat and drought, which destroys grass and forests. Those conditions allow the fire to spread quickly – if there is a spark.
“Let me call it the drying of the European continent,” said Johann Georg Goldammer, director of the Global Fire Monitoring Center, in Freiburg, Germany. The vegetation suffers from this heat and drought stress. And this is cumulative.”
The wildfires are “completely linked to previous weather conditions,” he said on Saturday.
In western France, firefighters have battled flames in the same area that was the epicenter of previous heat waves. The city of Bordeaux, where thousands have fled the suburbs, experienced its hottest on record in late June, with temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for three days in a row.
Since June 1, Bordeaux has had 20 days with temperatures of at least 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to five in the same period last year. It only rained for three days, never more than a little.
Western Europe experienced the hottest June on record, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s weather monitoring service. Copernicus also reported “widespread dry conditions” and below average soil moisture in Spain and France.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said heat waves, along with Europe’s warmer waters, pose “increasing risks to people, the environment and infrastructure.”
To that end, across Europe – the world’s hottest continent – those risks are playing out in many ways. The Danube River recently reached its lowest water level in 30 years, partially disrupting shipping. This month, low levels in the Rhine forced cargo ships to reduce cargo. The Netherlands has declared a water shortage, and much of France is facing water restrictions.
Then there are fires.
According to the European Forest Fire Information System, France has already recorded its most fires and the largest burned area in the last 20 summers. Between 2006 and 2015, France saw 15 fires in an average year. This year, it has recorded 312 fires, burning more than 70,000 hectares, with weeks of summer left.
Spain had one of its worst fire seasons last year. This year’s destruction is about 40 percent of last year’s. Typically, in Europe, the risk of wildfires is strongest in mid-July and August.
In 2021, the European Environment Agency said that the average area burned annually in the Mediterranean has decreased slightly since the 1980s due to improved fire management. But, the agency said, wildfires were raging in parts of central and northern Europe that “do not normally burn.”
