Large increase in the number of forest fires in Sweden

In 2019, rescue services brought out 5,296 fires in forest and land in Sweden. This is clearly higher than the average for the last 20-year period.

Between 1998 and 2014, the emergency services sent an average of 4,880 times a year to fires in forest and land. During the last five-year period, the number of calls has been clearly increased. On average, the emergency services went out to extinguish fires in forest and land 5,297 times a year between 2015 and 2019. This is an increase of 8.5 percent compared to the average for the 17 most recent years.

The forest fires caused by sparks and the like in connection with forestry work are often perceived as particularly problematic for the rescue service, even though they are relatively few.

- The big disadvantage with them is that they usually start deep in the forest, there is a lot of forest around and we have a long and difficult road there, says Björn Johansson, fire engineer at the rescue service in Karlstad.

The years with the highest number of calls during the entire period were 2003 with 8,022 calls and 2018 with 7,969 calls.

The years when the fires caused the most damage to productive forest land are 2018 when the fires covered 215 771 602 hectares, 2014 covered 104 980 838 hectares and in 2006 when 46 458 057 hectares were affected by fire.