{"id":20070,"date":"2026-04-08T09:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/?p=20070"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:47:13","slug":"last-year-was-eus-most-destructive-wildfire-season-on-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/last-year-was-eus-most-destructive-wildfire-season-on-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Year Was EU\u2019s Most Destructive Wildfire Season on Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>2025 fire season started early<\/strong>, with over 100,000 hectares burnt by the end of March. Intensity peaked in August when a prolonged heatwave triggered 22 very large fires in Portugal and Spain, burning 460,585 hectares \u2014 43% of the EU&#8217;s&nbsp;total of burnt land. The season reflects a <strong>clear trend: earlier starts, more frequent heatwaves, and fires reaching higher latitudes<\/strong> than historically observed. The report is available at this <a href=\"https:\/\/publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu\/repository\/handle\/JRC146199\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">link.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In total,<strong> 7,783 fires<\/strong> across 25 of 27 EU Member States resulted in <strong>1,079,538 burnt hectares<\/strong> \u2014 the highest ever recorded by EFFIS since 2006, nearly double the 2006\u20132024 average. Germany, Spain, Cyprus and Slovakia hit all-time records, while 39% of the burnt area fell within Natura 2000 protected sites. Beyond EU borders, Ukraine was the most impacted country, accounting for almost 30% of the total mapped burnt area.<\/p>\n<p>In response, the Commission adopted on <strong>25 March 2026 a new integrated approach to wildfire risk management<\/strong>, covering <strong>prevention, preparedness, response and recovery<\/strong>. Within this framework, the Commission will further improve<strong> EFFIS&#8217; early warning and fire mapping tools<\/strong>, integrating data from European and international satellites to provide <strong>near real-time information<\/strong> to EU countries and citizens.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EFFIS<\/strong>, a component of the <strong>Copernicus Emergency Management Service<\/strong> run by the JRC, has been providing reliable, timely and standardised wildfire data across Europe since 2000. It is supported by the <strong>Expert Group on Forest Fires<\/strong>, a network of 43 countries exchanging harmonised information and good practices on fire prevention, firefighting and restoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 fire season started early, with over 100,000 hectares burnt by the end of March. Intensity peaked in August when a prolonged &#8230; <a class=\"cz_readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/last-year-was-eus-most-destructive-wildfire-season-on-record\/\"><i class=\"fa fa-angle-right\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><span>\u010c\u00edst v\u00edce<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","iawp_total_views":0},"categories":[577],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20071,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20070\/revisions\/20071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cbcsd.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}