Although the supposed fire season is not over yet, the initial outcome of the fires has been worsening in the European continent, as more than 660,000 hectares have been burned since last January, which is a record for this period of the year since the start of recording satellite data. for the fires in 2006.
Since the beginning of this year, fires have destroyed 662,776 hectares of forests in Europe, according to data updated Sunday by the European Information System on Forest Fires, which maintains comparable statistics since 2006 thanks to satellite images of the European Copernicus program.
France experienced worse years in the 1970s, before the consolidated European data, but 2022 is the most dangerous in 16 years according to these figures, largely due to two consecutive major fires in the Gironde in the southwest of the country, where German, Polish and Austrian firefighters arrived this week to provide support .
The situation is also exceptional in Central Europe, where it took firefighters more than 10 days last July to control the largest fire in Slovenia's modern history, with the help of residents mobilizing themselves to the point that the government had to ask residents to stop donating to firefighters.
In the German capital, Berlin, a major fire broke out last week from a police ammunition depot in a drought-stricken forest, and was quickly brought under control, and so far the capital is still far from such fires, but it has become increasingly threatened due to its vast forest areas.
But the region most affected by the fires is the Iberian Peninsula. Spain - which was dominated by drought like France due to several heat waves this summer - witnessed the destruction of 245,278 hectares as a result of the fires, especially in Galicia in the northwest, however, the situation improved with lower temperatures. .
Also, for more than a week, Portugal has been battling a fire in the UNESCO-recognized global geological reserve in the Serra da Estrela mountain region.
Spain records the largest area of burned land, followed by Romania (150,528 hectares), Portugal (75,277 hectares), and France (61,289 hectares).
The coordinator of the European Information System on Forest Fires, Jesus San Miguel, said that "the year 2022 is already a record year" in relation to the summer period alone, and the previous record in Europe dates back to 2017, when fires destroyed 420 thousand and 913 hectares on August 13, And 988 thousand and 87 hectares in the whole year.
The exceptional drought in Europe, along with heat waves, contribute to the outbreak of the fires.
Extremely arid conditions are often observed in countries bordering the Mediterranean, but Jesús San Miguel noted that "this is exactly what happened in Central Europe" which until now had been spared these weather phenomena.