Brussels, Nov. 19, (dpa/GNA) – Last year was one of the worst years for wildfires in the European Union, according to a new report from the European Commission on Tuesday.
“Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires,” said EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in a statement accompanying the report.
“The 2023 wildfires again showed that we were not ready to face these risks,” he said.
According to the annual forest fire report from the commission, nearly 500,000 hectares, roughly half the size of the island of Cyprus, was burnt or impacted by wildfires in the EU.
Wildfires increasingly pose difficulties for traditional firefighting methods, like the megafire that burned near the city of Alexandroupolis in the Greek region of East Macedonia and Thrace.
This was the largest single wildfire reported in the European Union since the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) started recording the blazes in 2000.
Firefighting services are challenged by the “high frequency and intensity of wildfires during prolonged fire seasons” according to the commission.
Nearly 41% of the total burnt areas happened in areas specially protected for biodiversity the report said.
The report also said that 96% of EU wildfires are caused by human actions.
The damage in 2023 however was “significantly less” than that recorded in 2022, the report said. Nevertheless, 2023 was among the five worst years for wildfires in the EU.
In 2024, there has been a reported downturn of wildfires in the EU mainly due to rainfall in the spring and summer that affected much of the bloc.
GNA