1,5,6,1,7,8,9,10,11,- 1Regional Atmospheric Modelling (MAR) Group, Department of Physics, Regional Campus of International Excellence Campus Mare Nostrum (CEIR), University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
- 2Department of Biology–IVAGRO, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain
- 3Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR)2, Santiago, Chile
- 4Biological Mission of Galicia (MBG) – Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Pontevedra, Spain
- 5Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council, Torino, Italy
- 6National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo, Italy
- 7Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Ixelles, Belgium
- 8Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources, National Research Council, Torino, Italy
- 9CIMA Research Foundation, Savona, Italy
- 10Biodiversity Research Institute (IMIB CSIC- University of Oviedo- Principality of Asturias), University Campus of Mieres, Mieres, Spain
- 11Environmental Remote Sensing Research Group, Department of Geology, Geography and Environment, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Spain
- 12Centro de Investigaciones Sobre Desertificación (CIDE CSIC, UV, GV), Moncada, Valencia, Spain
The summer of 2025 marked an exceptional wildfire season in Europe, with total burned area reaching approximately 1 million hectares by the end of August, the highest value on record. More than half of this burned area was concentrated in Northwest Iberia, where multiple large fires developed over only a few weeks during an intense heatwave across southwestern Europe.
Building on Sánchez-Hernández et al. (2025), this contribution analyses the 2025 Northwest Iberian fires as an example of emerging Mediterranean wildfire risk. Using EFFIS burned area data and Fire Weather Index information, we show that August 2025 displayed the most extreme monthly fire-weather conditions in the region during 1985–2025. Burned area and fire weather were strongly associated, but their relationship was non-linear, indicating that extreme fire weather is necessary but not sufficient to produce extreme burned area.
The fires also showed marked vegetation selectivity, with shrublands contributing disproportionately to burned area, suggesting an important role of fine-fuel continuity and landscape-scale fuel accumulation. Overall, the 2025 fires illustrate how extreme meteorological hazard, continuous fuels and territorial vulnerability can interact to generate near-synchronous large fires that exceed suppression capacity. These results underline the need for integrated risk-reduction strategies combining climate mitigation, land-use planning, fuel management and community resilience.
Reference
Sánchez-Hernández, G., Turco, M., Repeto-Deudero, I., Royé, D., Baudena, M., Montávez, J. P., ... & Pausas, J. G. (2025). Record-breaking 2025 European wildfires concentrated in Northwest Iberia. Global Change Biology, 31(12), e70649.
How to cite: Turco, M., Sánchez-Hernández, G., Repeto-Deudero, I., Royé, D., Baudena, M., Montávez, J. P., Pietroiusti, R., Provenzale, A., Santin, C., Torres-Vázquez, M. Á., and Pausas, J. G.: Record-breaking 2025 wildfires in Northwest Iberia: extreme fire weather, fuel continuity and emerging Mediterranean fire risk , 19th Plinius Conference on Mediterranean Risks, Murcia, Spain, 6–9 Oct 2026, Plinius19-47, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-plinius19-47, 2026.
