This summer’s infernos expose how climate change, land neglect and disaster capitalism turn forests into fuel.
From Turkiye to Greece, from France to Spain, this summer’s Mediterranean wildfires make one thing clear: Something has changed. These are no longer occasional dry spells or extreme seasons. The so-called sixth-generation fires are fuelled by a climatic and social logic deeply embedded in the machinery of global disaster capitalism.
The scale is staggering. By August 26, more than one million hectares (3,860sq miles) had burned across the European Union in 2025 – four times the historical average of the past two decades. In Spain, the devastation jumped from 40,000 to more than 416,000 hectares (155 to 1,606sq miles) in just a matter of weeks, making 2025 the year with the largest area burned this century, while fire-related emissions reached the highest annual total in the record dating back to 2003. The fires have forced tens of thousands of people to flee and claimed at least eight lives, among them firefighters and volunteers. Critical infrastructure, including the rail link between Madrid and Galicia, was disrupted. And beyond the flames, the toll of heat itself is just as brutal: As ofAugust 22, the Spanish National Research Council’s MACE system estimated that nearly 16,000 people have already died from heat this summer – 6,000 more than just two weeks earlier.
