Western Europe Has Recorded Its Hottest June Ever, With Wildfires Now Blazing Through Spain And France
By July 8, wildfires had already burned through about 160,000 hectares across the EU this year.
Spain and France are battling some of the worst wildfires in Europe in years, and it is now approaching the French capital of Paris.
Southern Europe has been getting hotter and drier for years, and in June 2026, western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, the second-warmest June ever recorded globally, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
France alone recorded more than 2,000 deaths in the last week of June attributed to the heat, French authorities said.
By July 8, wildfires had already burned through about 160,000 hectares across the EU this year, well above the average of about 100,000 hectares by that point, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
In Spain, on July 9, a wildfire tore through a rural expat community near Almeria, on the country’s southern coast, killing 13 people, some of whom were found inside their vehicles, while 10 people remained missing.
The blaze burned through more than 3,200 hectares before it was contained on Sunday, July 12.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the site and called the deaths "an unprecedented tragedy."
In France, wildfires have burned through about 25,000 hectares of land, roughly twice as much as during the same period last year, French authorities said.
Earlier in July, a wildfire in the Pyrenees mountains, near the city of Perpignan, forced about 10,000 to 12,000 people to evacuate.
A fire broke out on Sunday, July 12, in the Fontainebleau forest, a former royal hunting ground popular with tourists and home to the Fontainebleau Chateau, a favorite of Napoleon, about 60 kilometers southeast of Paris.
France deployed two firefighting planes, the first time such aircraft have been used in the greater Paris region.
French police said Monday they suspect the fire was started deliberately, and two people have been arrested in connection with it.
A deputy mayor in a nearby village said he had never seen fires like this in three decades.
Fires have also broken out this summer in Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Albania, and in the UK, where people were evacuated from homes in north Wales.
Scientists who reviewed June's record heatwave said it would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change, according to the World Weather Attribution research group.
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Cherry Mohamed
Cherry Mohamed
