Wildfires across Europe have killed hundreds over the last decade

A wildfire in southern Spain killed at least 11 people overnight into Friday morning, making it one of the country’s deadliest on record. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing several intense heat waves across Europe.

Recent deadly fires More than 100 people died in Greece in 2018 when a blaze swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens. In 2023, more than 20 people died in Greek wildfires, including 18 migrants who became trapped by the flames of what became Europe’s largest single recorded wildfire.

Last July, 10 firefighters and rescue workers were killed while trying to put out a wildfire that raged in a forested area of Eskisehir province in northwestern Turkey. The victims were forestry workers and members of the AKUT rescue organization. Portugal’s deadliest wildfire left 66 people dead in 2017 in Pedrogao Grande, 200 kilometers northeast of Lisbon.

Additional late-season wildfires brought 2017’s annual wildfire-related death toll in Portugal to more than 120 people.

Climate change connection In Cyprus, officials have pointed to climate change for the ferocity and speed of recent wildfires that have claimed at least six lives over the last five years. In July 2021, the charred remains of four Egyptian laborers were discovered outside a fire-swept mountain village.

Last July, rescue crews found the bodies of an elderly couple inside a gutted car on the shoulder of a mountain road. ” In August last year, a study by World Weather Attribution said climate change that has driven scorching temperatures and dwindling rainfall made massive wildfires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus burn much more fiercely that summer.