Record-Breaking 2025 European Wildfires Concentrated in Northwest Iberia

Abstract

At the end of August 2025, the total burned area (BA) in Europe reached ~1 million hectares (Mha), the highest on record (https:// forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu/apps/effis.statistics/seaso naltrend). More than half of this total (~541,000ha) was concentrated within only ~2% of the EU area, in a ~15Mha region in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula (NW-IP; Figure 1a) and developed over just a few weeks in August (Keeping et al. 2025). For several days, large wildfires burned in the region, prompting military support and the first-ever activation of the European Civil Protection Mechanism in Spain. The fires caused severe environmental and socio-economic impacts, including at least eight fatalities and large-scale evacuations (https://www.euron ews.com/2025/08/17/wildfires-in-spain-and-portugal-force -evacuations-and-deployment-of-thousands-of-emergency; Keeping et al. 2025).