Europe counts cost as rivers run low and wildfires blaze evacuations

The wildfire season is on track to be Europe's biggest ever, with nearly 543,000 hectares burned — mostly in Spain, France, and Italy — according to research posted by the European climate agency Copernicus on Monday.

There have been 1,599 fires detected since the start of the year, which is slightly less than the 1,635 recorded by Aug 10, 2025, but more than double the long-term average of 686 fires.

Speaking about the wildfires this week, Laurence Rouil, director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, or ECMWF, said: "Last month saw exceptional wildfire activity across western Europe, in terms of the area burned and emissions.

"Climate change is increasingly bringing the kinds of hot and dry conditions that favor large, high-intensity wildfires in southern Europe while extending the fire season northwards. Larger fires produce more smoke and inject it higher into the atmosphere, meaning it can travel further and impact air quality not only locally, but across the wider region.

"Countries that experience relatively few wildfires may be increasingly impacted by long-range transport of smoke, even if they are thousands of kilometers away."

Scientists warn that human-driven climate change, amplified by El Nino conditions — a periodic Pacific Ocean pattern that impacts weather worldwide — is keeping temperatures elevated across the season.