Europe's fire season is stretching longer, and prevention is falling behind
Europe's wildfire season now begins earlier and ends later than it did a generation ago, with the European Forest Fire Information System recording record burned area across the continent in 2025.
In 30 seconds
- The European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), run by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, recorded 2025 as the worst wildfire year on record in the EU by burned area.
- Spain and Portugal accounted for the bulk of the 2025 burned area, with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service reporting record wildfire carbon emissions for the Iberian Peninsula.
- EFFIS attributes the overwhelming majority of European wildfire ignitions to human activity rather than natural causes.
- Fire scientists argue that suppression-only policy allows fuel to accumulate, producing extreme fires that aerial firefighting cannot control — the so-called fire paradox.
The subject is the lengthening of Europe's wildfire season and the growing argument among fire scientists and civil protection agencies that prevention — landscape and fuel management — matters more than additional firefighting capacity. Key entities: the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), run by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre; the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), which tracks wildfire emissions; the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and its rescEU aerial firefighting reserve; and the worst-affected member states, principally Spain, Portugal and Greece. Belgium participates as a contributing state to the EU mechanism rather than as a high-risk country.
Background
Europe's modern fire-suppression model dates from the second half of the twentieth century, when Mediterranean states built large aerial firefighting fleets and professionalised forest services. It worked for decades against fires that burned within predictable limits. The paradox now recognised by fire scientists is that highly effective suppression removes the small, frequent fires that historically cleared undergrowth, allowing fuel to accumulate until a fire arrives that suppression cannot handle. This is sometimes called the fire paradox. It compounds a second long-term shift: the abandonment of marginal agricultural land across southern Europe since the 1960s, which replaced a patchwork of fields, pasture and managed woodland with continuous forest.
What to do
People travelling to southern Europe outside July and August should expect fire risk warnings across a wider part of the year, including spring and autumn. Property owners in exposed regions face tightening clearance obligations and harder insurance terms. In Belgium, check regional fire-phase codes before visiting heath and moorland reserves during dry weather.
The Belgian angle
Belgium is a low-risk country by European standards, but not a zero-risk one. Nature fires have hit the Kempen heathlands in Limburg and Antwerp province and the Hoge Venen in Liège province during dry spells, and Flemish and Walloon nature agencies apply fire-risk phases that can close reserves to the public. Belgian firefighting and civil protection personnel have also served in EU deployments to southern member states.
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