1,1,3,4,4,1- 1Imperial College London, Centre for Environmental Policy, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales
- 2University of Reading, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, Reading, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales
- 3School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece
- 4Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, the Netherlands
The 2025 European fire season was characterised by record-breaking burned area and multiple extreme wildfire events across the continent. Increasing wildfire extremes in Europe and globally has intensified interest in how climate and land-use changes are altering European fire regimes. Extreme event attribution of antecedent and concurrent fire weather conditions is used here to assess the changing likelihood and intensity of recent events both relative to preindustrial conditions and under projected climate change.
We analyse five regions that experienced extreme wildfire activity in 2025: northwestern Iberia, upland Britain, southwestern Mediterranean France, the eastern Adriatic/Ionian, and northern and western Türkiye. For each region, we attribute changes in the likelihood of short-term fire-weather extremes around peak wildfire activity, using 7-day maxima of vapour pressure deficit (VPD), surface wind speed, and a composite index of VPD and wind, in addition to spring and summer effective precipitation to characterise seasonal drought and fuel accumulation conditions. In addition to weather-related drivers, we assess trends in spring and summer vegetation cover using the leaf area index (LAI) and in land abandonment or reclamation using the changing fraction of managed and unmanaged land.
Climate change strongly increased vapour pressure deficit and the composite VPD/wind index for all southern European regions, with the likelihood of drought conditions at least as strong as 2025 also increasing by over a factor of three relative to in the preindustrial climate. Short-term fire weather or summer drought exhibited a weak positive and negative trend with warming respectively, though an increasing likelihood of spring drought conditions, a key driver of 2025’s wildfires, was identified. Spring vegetation significantly increased across Europe, implying higher fuel loads and a potential for more intense wildfires. Land management trends were mixed, with long-term land abandonment in southwestern France and northern and western Türkiye and a recent, rapid land abandonment signal in the eastern Adriatic/Ionian.
The record-breaking 2025 European fire season occurred in the context of a climate change driven intensification of the fire weather extremes and drought conditions associated with each of the five wildfire events examined. Combined with increasing growth-season vegetation cover and ongoing land abandonment, these factors suggest increases in European wildfire extremes will continue.
How to cite: Keeping, T., Zachariah, M., Barnes, C., Haas, O., Grillakis, E., Pinto, I., Clarke, B., Kimutai, J., Philip, S., Kew, S., and Otto, F.: How Climate and Land Cover Change Shaped Europe's Record Breaking 2025 Fire Season, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19805, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19805, 2026.
