EU wildfires worst on record as burning season continues

Data shows more than 1m hectares torched so far this year, with records also broken for CO2 and other air pollutants

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Wildfires ravaging the EU have torched more than 1m hectares this year, marking 2025 as the worst year on record, a full month before the fire season ends.

Deadly infernos that have emptied out villages and forced farmers to become firefighters have engulfed four times as much land this year as the average for the same period over the past two decades, according to official data that was updated on Friday and may be revised further.

The fires have charred homes, blackened forests and choked far-off cities. Data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), which goes back to 2003, shows 1,015,024 hectares have burned this year – breaking the previous record of 988,544 hectares that was set in 2017, with weeks of dangerous fire weather still to come.