Europe enters an era of super forest fires

According to CNN, huge forest fires raging in southwestern France broke out so fiercely that they created strong thunderstorms. This rare phenomenon sometimes appears in super forest fires in the US and Canada, but has never been recorded in France before. According to experts, this is one of many signs that Europe is entering a completely new era of forest fires. Europe has long faced forest fires, but the fires are becoming more extreme as the climate crisis becomes more severe.

This week, firefighters in France and Spain have had to fight more powerful and unpredictable fires than before. On July 29, the two countries’ governments said some forest fires had been controlled, but expressed concern that the situation could worsen amid Europe’s fourth heat wave since the beginning of this year. Fires in France have burned more than 160,000 hectares while the forest fire season still lasts for many months. The European Union warns of the risk of forest fires spreading further east in Greece and Italy.

According to European Data Journalism Network, from 2015 to 2025, Europe has experienced 134 extremely large forest fires, covering an area of ​​over 5,000 hectares, including 61 super fires exceeding 10,000 hectares. Megafire is the term for a giant forest fire that breaks out violently and is extremely difficult to control, burns a huge area, lasts for many months, creates its own weather system and causes catastrophic damage. According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), large fires are concentrated in southern Europe, including Spain (25), Portugal (24), Greece (8), France (2), Italy (1) and Cyprus (1).

Íctor Resco de Dios, lecturer in forestry engineering and global change at Lleida University in Spain, commented: “We have entered a period of fires that cannot be extinguished. These are fires that break out with an intensity equivalent to several atomic bombs.”

One of the clearest evidence is the appearance of fire clouds, formed last weekend in the region. Gironde, near Bordeaux. According to Wired, fire clouds appear when a particularly intense forest fire creates a column of extremely hot air that quickly rises, meets the layer of colder air above and then condenses into a giant thundercloud. Instead of bringing rain, this type of storm cloud can create lightning, causing new fires and strong downdrafts to the ground, making the fire grow stronger. At its worst, fire clouds can even spawn tornadoes. Similar phenomena have appeared in Australia, Canada and the United States.

The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) said it could not be confirmed that this was the first fire cloud in France. However, according to Francesca Di Giuseppe, ECMWF’s forest fire forecast coordinator, if confirmed, the phenomenon will highlight the exceptional intensity of the current fire as well as the unusual atmospheric conditions that caused the fire to break out.

The scale of the fires also attracted attention when the fire burned large areas of land in France and Spain, forcing both countries to ask the European Union (EU) for assistance. The fire spreading through the mountainous province of Avila, west of Madrid, Spain, is the largest fire in the country’s history. In Türkiye, fires swept through agricultural and forest lands in the southwestern province of Mugla, on the Aegean coast. Stefan Doerr, Director of the Center for Forest Fire Research at Swansea University, Wales, emphasized: “A forest fire crisis occurring simultaneously in many countries is a rare phenomenon in Europe.”

Forest fires on such a large scale are almost impossible to completely extinguish unless fuel is exhausted or rain is continuous. Each forest fire has its own complex characteristics, influenced by many factors such as land management, terrain or firefighting capacity. But extreme weather caused by climate change is the main reason why forest fires in Europe are getting worse.

Matthew Jones, a researcher at the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK, explains that global warming causes the weather to fluctuate more strongly between periods of heavy rain and dryness in a “whiplash effect”. Last winter in France and Spain was unusually wet, leading to strong vegetation growth. After that, the weather reversed rapidly. Since May, Western Europe has continuously suffered from severe heat waves, causing trees to dry out and become flammable fuel.

The process of completely extinguishing the current fires may take several months, but their impact will last much longer than that. Sky full of toxic smoke will harm your health. The fires broke out near several major European cities, affecting tourist destinations, wine growing areas and defense hubs. In the future, it is likely that forest fires in Europe will become more frequent and extreme if humans continue to burn fossil fuels, increasing global temperatures.