The extraordinary growth of a few enormous wildfires in France and Spain in the last two weeks has transformed an above-average fire season into a record-breaking one.
Forty percent more land has already burned in France than in the previous record year documented by the European Forest Fire Information System, which began tracking burned areas in 2006.
In Spain, the amount of land consumed so far this year is nearly at record levels for the last two decades.
The two largest wildfires are the largest recorded in France and Spain since European Union data began. They have forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and threatened Bordeaux in France and Madrid and Valencia in Spain.
Rarely have so many enormous fires burned in Europe at the same time. Three of the fifteen largest European fires in the last decade have burned this month — two near Madrid and one near Bordeaux.
Three of the fifteen largest European fires of the last decade were burning this month
Europe has been hit by successive heat waves since late May, and last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
The heat has dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly, and the Spanish and French authorities say that erratic winds have made the fires difficult to stop.
A satellite image captured Sunday shows a 30-mile-wide burned area where the Ávila fire has been raging west of Madrid. Another large, scorched area can be seen northeast of the capital where the La Mierla fire, which was stabilized last week, consumed more than 80,000 acres.
Firefighters are racing to control the fires before another heat wave hits France and Spain this week. Temperatures are forecast to climb to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius, in some areas.
Last year saw a record-breaking fire season across Europe, with more than 2.5 million acres burned. The fires of the last two weeks have propelled 2026 ahead of last year at the same time, with more land burned than by this point in 2025.
There could be more destruction to come. Last year, about 60 percent of wildfire damage occurred in August alone. And many parts of Europe outside France and Spain have yet to be hit particularly hard this year.
