{"id":568386,"date":"2026-07-31T09:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T09:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568386\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T09:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T09:40:09","slug":"extremely-scary-findings-show-climate-crisis-is-supercharging-europes-wildfire-weather-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568386\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Extremely scary findings\u2019 show climate crisis is supercharging Europe\u2019s wildfire weather | Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

The extreme heat and drought stoking huge wildfires in Spain and France<\/a> were made far more likely by the climate crisis, a scientific analysis has found.<\/p>\n

Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France, experts from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium calculated<\/a>. The finding is the latest to pin the blame for the continent\u2019s sweltering and deadly summer firmly on the heating caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal.<\/p>\n

The intense heatwave at the end of June<\/a>, which is estimated to have killed 20,000 people<\/a>, could not have happened without the extra heat trapped by carbon pollution, a previous WWA study showed. Another found that the climate crisis-driven heat was \u201csucking soils dry\u201d<\/a> as extreme drought spread across Europe.<\/p>\n

Searing heat and parched land led to very high \u201cdaily severity ratings\u201d, the metric that was used in the new analysis and which measures how severe a wildfire will be if ignited. Studies of the 2025 wildfires<\/a> also found they were supercharged by the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s wildfires in western Europe have been made worse by a wet winter and spring, which boosted the growth of vegetation, which then dried out and provided fuel for the fires \u2013 so-called whiplash<\/a> conditions. Global heating is making winters wetter and summers drier and hotter in Europe.<\/p>\n

A scorched landscape near Vila Vella, in Spain\u2019s Val\u00e8ncia province. Photograph: Damian Torres\/AP<\/p>\n

Dr Clair Barnes, a research associate at Imperial College London and part of the WWA study team, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve seen repeatedly how climate change increases hot, dry, flammable conditions that are extremely conducive to wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s unique about [the July fires in Spain<\/a> and France] is that it\u2019s still early in the season \u2013 and with another heatwave looming, these findings are extremely scary. What we\u2019re seeing is a clear sign of the escalating impacts of [human-caused] warming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julie Arrighi, the director of programmes at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said: \u201cWhat we are seeing now in Spain and France goes well beyond what we would expect from past events.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wildfires have released huge plumes of toxic smoke. Dr Augustin Colette, at the French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks, said: \u201cThe smoke increased particulate [pollution] peak levels up to 20 times above what is considered \u2018fair air quality\u2019, and extremely poor air quality was felt up to 400 km away from the fires.\u201d About 1.5 million people a year<\/a> are estimated to have their lives shortened by wildfire smoke.<\/p>\n

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Severe wildfires have burned across Spain and France<\/a> since early July, killing people, destroying thousands of homes, and forcing more than 300,000 people to flee. The WWA analysis assessed the seven-day period with the highest daily severity ratings (DSR) for each country. The scientists used weather records and established statistical methods to estimate how much more likely a week of extremely high DSR is in today\u2019s heated world compared with in the world before mass fossil-fuel burning raised the global temperature by 1.4C (2.5F).<\/p>\n

Big wildfires have also broken out in the UK<\/a> and Greece<\/a>, where three firefighters lost their lives.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s climate chief, Simon Stiell, said: \u201cThese European megafires show how fast climate-driven extreme heat and dry landscapes can turn wildfires into devastating national disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumanity continuing to burn colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas is making these conditions more dangerous, and these megafires more deadly and destructive,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the solutions are equally clear: all countries must move faster from fossil fuels to renewables and protect people from worsening climate impacts, from wildfires, to megastorms and floods, to droughts hitting food production.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian\u2019s climate forum 2026<\/a>
On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington, and our panel of experts \u2013 including Prof Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh, Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman \u2013 for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here<\/a> or at guardian.live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The extreme heat and drought stoking huge wildfires in Spain and France were made far more likely by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-568386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}