In 2025, Europe has exceeded a threshold that until a few years ago seemed distant: that of out-of-scale fires. According to data from the European EFFIS system – the European Forest Fire Information System -, 1,079,538 hectares have gone up in smoke in the European Union, the highest value ever recorded since 2006. If we broaden our gaze to the entire monitored area – Europe, the Middle East and North Africa – the count rises to over 2.2 million hectares. These are numbers that show a clear change of pace both in terms of the extension of the affected surfaces and the dynamics of the events: earlier, more intense and less and less confined to the Mediterranean basin.
The fire calendar has changed
The 2025 season started months early. By the end of March, over 100,000 hectares had already burned in the EU. A figure that, until a few years ago, was recorded late in the season. The peak arrived in summer, but with different characteristics from the past. In the first three weeks of August, a prolonged heat wave triggered 22 large fires almost simultaneously between Spain and Portugal, burning over 460 thousand hectares: alone, 43% of the European total. The temporal concentration of events is one of the most critical elements. When multiple fires break out at the same time, the ability to intervene is drastically reduced, even with advanced civil protection systems.
Fewer and fewer “Mediterranean fires”
2025 also marks a geographic shift in risk. Germany, Slovakia and Cyprus recorded record levels of burned areas. Fire moves to higher latitudes, following favorable climatic conditions: high temperatures, dry vegetation and prolonged periods without rain. In total, 7,783 fires have been mapped in 25 EU countries. Only Luxembourg and Malta remained unscathed.
In the European context, Italy confirms a growing vulnerability. In 2025, 96,539 hectares burned, distributed across 1,910 fires. The figure is almost double the average of recent years. What makes the difference is not so much the total number of fires, but their size. Over 20 fires have exceeded 500 hectares, with a peak exceeding 5,500 hectares in Sicily. 85% of the affected area is concentrated in the summer months, but the season is also getting longer in spring and autumn.
Another relevant element concerns the type of territories affected. In Italy, 38.5% of burned surfaces are agricultural areas, while around a third concern non-forest natural areas. This means that fires not only affect natural ecosystems, but directly impact production activities.
Protected areas under attack
2025 was also the most critical year for the Natura 2000 network. In the EU, around 424 thousand hectares of protected areas were affected by fires, equal to 39% of the total burned. In Italy, over 27 thousand hectares of Natura 2000 sites have been affected. Fragile habitats, often already under pressure, which will take years to recover – if they recover at all. The European figure is even clearer: in the last three years, the surfaces burned in protected areas have doubled. A signal that calls into question the conservation capacity of these territories.
A more precise system
Fire monitoring today is much more accurate than in the past. The EFFIS system uses high-resolution satellite images and is able to map approximately 95% of burnt surfaces. Since 2018 it has also been possible to detect fires smaller than 30 hectares, improving the quality of the analyses. But technology is not enough to compensate for the intensification of the phenomenon. In 2025 the total area burned increased by 20% compared to 2024 and is almost two and a half times higher than that of 2023.
Faced with this escalation, the European Commission has strengthened its intervention tools. The civil protection mechanism and rescEU fleet have been strengthened, with new firefighting planes and helicopters arriving in the coming years. At the same time, the focus is on prevention and land management: from the reduction of vegetable fuel to forestry planning. But implementation times are long, while fires accelerate.
A balance that is broken
The most relevant data for 2025 is quantitative and, at the same time, structural: fires are changing frequency, duration and distribution. They are no longer exceptional events, but a stable component of European climate risk. For Italy, this means facing a problem that does not only concern the summer or the South. It means managing a more exposed territory, with growing environmental and economic costs. And there is a certainty that the fire season no longer has a predictable calendar.
