The European Union's joint research center said wildfires that broke out across Europe this summer have burned the second largest area on record so far, even though this area is still the middle of the usual fire season.
Dozens of European countries have suffered from major fires this year, forcing thousands of residents to flee, destroying homes and workplaces, and
countries such as Italy, Spain and France still face the risk of severe fires.
The data showed that forest fires have burned more than 1.484 million acres in the European Union this year so far, which is the second largest total area ever since 2006, when the registration process began, as in 2017, about 2.441 million acres were recorded.
The area of the burned area this year is twice the size of Luxembourg, and no other year - according to the data - has seen such a large number of burned lands in Europe by August, and the fire season usually extends in the Mediterranean countries from June to September. September.
Climate change exacerbates fires, by increasing heat and dry waves that help them spread faster, rage for longer, and increase their intensity, and hot weather drains moisture from vegetation and turns it into dry fuel, a problem that is exacerbated by the lack of manpower in some areas to remove This vegetation.
Victor Risco de Dios, professor of forest engineering at Spain's University of Lleida, says the large fires in France and Portugal in early July were "completely unusual" and showed how climate change caused the fire season to start earlier and last longer.
Southern European countries, such as Portugal and Greece, experience fires most of the summer, but high temperatures increase the likelihood of severe forest fires in the north of the continent.
Germany, Slovenia and the Czech Republic were among the countries that saw wildfires erupt this season.
Without sharp cuts in the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, scientists agree that heat waves, wildfires and other climate impacts will make matters dramatically worse.