Now, a new global study has found that
climate change intensified the record
fires which have been sweeping across
Europe this year. A record 1 million
hectares, which is equivalent to around
half the land area of Wales, have burned
across the European Union so far this
year. 10 people are known to have died,
while tens of thousands have been
displaced. Our climate editor, Justin
Rolat, has more.
>> Wildfires lit up the night sky in Turkey
this summer. There were similar scenes
in many European countries where
helicopters and planes were brought in
to try and control the flames. Europe
has experienced its worst wildfires on
record this year and say scientists
today climate change was partly to
blame.
The report from the World Weather
Attribution Group looks at the fires
that raged this year in Turkey, Greece,
and Cyprus, but says similar results are
expected for the record wildfires in
Spain. Climate change helped set the
scene by reducing winter rainfall in the
region by about 14%, the researchers
say. Then there were the scorching
temperatures in the days preceding the
fires, made 13 times more likely by
climate change. The team calculated they
peaked at over 50 degrees C in Turkey,
for example, a record for the country.
Finally, there was the combination of
hot, dry, and windy conditions that
drove the spread of the wildfires. The
researchers estimated they were made 10
times more likely and more than 20% more
intense by climate change. And the
scientists warn worse is to come,
potentially overwhelming emergency
services unless planet warming emissions
are dramatically reduced.
>> In a drier and hotter world, um we are
going to burn more and we're going to
burn uh more severely and uh we're going
to continue to burn in higher frequency.
there will be more wildfires um which
will eventually stretch the um
suppression efforts then regionally um
for this part of the world
>> and the UK is on track to have a
record-breaking wildfire year two
firefighters warned earlier this month
this fire on the North York Moors above
Whitby has been burning for more than 2
weeks during what the Met Office said
will almost certainly be the hottest
summer on record for the UK. Justin
Rolat, BBC News.
>> Well, let's speak now to our climate and
science reporter, Esme Stallard, who's
in Cardiff. Essme, these are alarming
statistics, aren't they? How do we
reverse this trend, or are we past a
point of no return?
>> Well, I mean, the impacts that have been
highlighted in this study today around
climate change driving these extreme
temperatures, low rainfall, and
therefore increasing the risk of
wildfire are to some extent baked in. So
the emissions that we've already
produced entering our atmosphere will
continue to drive up temperatures for
some time. And we're certainly not a
case where we're stopping those
emissions being added, which of course
will be worrying authorities across
Europe, but also other areas at the
moment. There are also extensive
wildfires going on in Canada. It's their
second worst wildfire season after 2023.
There's also wildfires along the west
coast of the US at the moment. So it's
not just Europe that's struggling with
this. And I think it really brings to
the forefront of those authorities minds
the importance of tackling emissions.
But of course that is a very much a
long-term ambition. What do they do day
after day and summer after summer in
terms of tackling this? Well I mean in
the situation in Europe what they've had
to do is call on the EU civil protection
mechanism which is a separate
firefighting force that countries across
the EU put into. They've been deployed
to Spain and Portugal which have
struggled the most with wildfires. So
this record season, a million hectares
burned. Half of that was actually across
the Iberian Peninsula. So they're trying
to deploy forces and share forces across
those countries. But also what they're
looking to do is to try and reduce the
risk levels. So a particular issue
within Spain and Portugal is they have a
lot of agricultural land that for to a
certain extent has been left because
there's been a lot of movement out of
agricultural land by young people into
cities which meant there is a lot of
kind of overgrowth and as that dries out
there's more risk of burning. So they'll
be looking to try and reduce that load
or kind of what we call the fuel load
for future summers. But it certainly
seems that we're on a kind of upward
trajectory for getting worse wildfires
globally.
>> Essay, thank you for bringing us that
overview there. That's our climate and
science reporter Esme Stallard in
Cardiff.