BRUSSELS — The EU is suffering its worst wildfire season on record, surpassing 1 million hectares burned Thursday.
Fires have burned 1,016,000 hectares — an area larger than Cyprus or around a third of the size of Belgium — since January, data from the bloc’s European Forest Fire Information System analyzed by POLITICO shows.
This is the first time the EU hits the 1 million hectare milestone since EFFIS started keeping records in 2006. The previous worst wildfire season, in 2017, clocked just below 988,000 hectares.
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Nearly two-thirds of losses occurred since Aug. 5, when EFFIS showed only 380,000 hectares burned. The vast majority of the fires have occurred in the Iberian Peninsula.
