The fires are getting bigger

Wildfires have burned 28,000 hectares in France and 50,000 hectares in Spain by early July 2026. That is more than double what normally burns by this time of year, according to The Guardian. In southwestern France, a single fire forced 10,000 people from their homes and injured 16, including four firefighters, Reuters reported. Portugal has deployed over 1,200 firefighters to battle a blaze that burned 12,000 hectares, AP News reported.

2025 was already a terrible year for fire. More fires have burned in 2026 in just the first month than burned across all of 2025, which was the worst year on record for the European Union, The Connexion France reported.

Heat waves made the fires worse

Two intense heat waves—one in late May, another in late June—are driving the fires. Scientists who study extreme weather linked to climate change say that the record-breaking heat in Europe this June would have been nearly impossible without global warming from fossil fuels, per Guardian analysis.

Night temperatures are especially dangerous. When it stays hot at night, plants and soil cannot cool down and recover. Historically, this cooling-off period at night kept fires from spreading as fast and let firefighters rest.

The trap: too much rain, then no rain

Here is what made 2026 so dangerous: Spain and Portugal had an unusually wet winter with heavy rainfall. That water helped plants grow thick and abundant. But when the heat waves arrived in late May and June, all that vegetation dried out fast—like leaving a wet sponge in the sun.

A climate scientist named Julia Miller studied this exact pattern and found it triggered Spain's worst fire year in 2025 too. The same wet-then-hot cycle is happening again in 2026, according to her research published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

How bad was 2025?

Last year was historic. The European Union burned over 1 million hectares—more than any year on record, Copernicus reported. Spain and Portugal alone lost over 640,000 hectares, with eight deaths and 35,000 people evacuated from their homes, AP reported.

By August 2025, nearly 440,000 hectares had burned across the European Eurozone—twice the normal amount for that time of year, Reuters tallied.

The bigger problem: This is becoming normal

The real worry is not about one bad summer—it is about whether Europe's cities, forests, and emergency services can handle fire seasons as dangerous as 2025 becoming routine. Right now, towns and firefighting systems were built for less intense, less frequent fires. If extreme seasons keep happening, the old system will not work anymore.

A small sign of change: Tour de France organizers banned spectators from one stage because of fire risk, AP reported. This shows that fire danger is now something people plan around in ordinary summer plans.