{"id":709685,"date":"2026-07-24T23:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T23:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709685\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T23:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T23:49:11","slug":"europe-wildfires-latest-more-than-140000-evacuated-across-france-and-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/709685\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe wildfires latest: More than 140,000 evacuated across France and Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Analysis\"The scale of these Spain and France wildfires is strikingpublished at 22:16 BST<\/p>\n

22:16 BST<\/p>\n

\"\"Justin Rowlatt
Climate editor<\/p>\n

July is the heart of the Mediterranean wildfire season, so the
\nfires in Spain and southern France are not in themselves unusually early. What
\nis striking is the scale already reached. <\/p>\n

Spain has burned far more land than
\nat the same point last year, while France says significant fire activity began
\nseveral weeks earlier than usual and the area burned is already well above
\nnormal. <\/p>\n

Europe
\nis the fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global
\naverage, and that rapid warming is making its summers hotter and, particularly
\nin the south, drier. <\/p>\n

Those
\nconditions leave soil, trees and other vegetation with less moisture, creating
\nthe fuel in which wildfires can take hold. A spark is still needed – most often
\nfrom human activity, usually accidental but sometimes deliberate, or from
\nlightning. <\/p>\n

Once a
\nfire starts, extreme heat, dry vegetation and strong winds can help it spread
\nfaster, burn more intensely and become much harder to control. <\/p>\n

How forests and
\nlandscapes are managed also matters: Accumulated vegetation and abandoned land
\ncan provide more fuel for fires. <\/p>\n

But the European Environment Agency has said
\n\u201cclimate change has increased forest fire risk across Europe\u201d, with the
\ngreatest danger expected in southern Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scale of these Spain and France wildfires is strikingpublished at 22:16 BST 22:16 BST Justin RowlattClimate editor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-709685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}