Record-breaking wildfires in France and Spain, each consuming approximately 100,000 acres, have drawn attention to the growing challenges posed by large-scale fires in Southern Europe. These recent blazes rank among the largest on record for both countries and exceed the size of all but six wildfires in the American West from the previous year.

While climate change remains a key driver behind the increase in intense, fast-moving fires across the region, experts point to significant social and land-use shifts as additional factors fueling the trend. Over recent decades, a generational movement away from farming has allowed once-managed landscapes of pastures and cultivated fields to revert to dense, untended vegetation, which can ignite and spread fires rapidly during hot and dry summer conditions.

“Climate change needs to be taken into account, but also the social changes are very important,” said Emilio Chuvieco, professor of geography at the University of Alcalá in Spain. He noted that the decline of rural populations has exacerbated this issue by reducing land stewardship, leaving shrubs and forests overgrown and interconnected in ways that promote fire spread.

A recent report from Spain’s Royal Academy of Engineering described the country as entering a “new era of megafires,” emphasizing that total fire elimination is unrealistic and that societies must adapt to coexist with these natural phenomena. Meanwhile, global warming driven by industrial emissions has intensified the conditions underpinning wildfires, generating drier landscapes more susceptible to large-scale burning.

Jennifer K. Balch, a geography professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, highlighted the global pattern, pointing to record-setting fire seasons elsewhere. In 2023, fire-affected land in Canada was seven times the historical average, and 2024 saw Amazon rainforest blazes in Brazil consume areas equivalent in size to Belgium. Similarly, California has suffered nine of its ten largest wildfires in the past decade.

Southern Europe’s recent surge in severe fire activity follows a period of steady decline in burned areas during the 1990s and 2000s. Following devastating wildfires in the late 20th century, Spain and France invested heavily in wildfire prevention through enhanced firefighting capabilities, public awareness campaigns, and cross-border cooperation. However, experts suggest that these efforts have been increasingly overwhelmed by climatic trends and landscape changes.

Paradoxically, the effective suppression of smaller fires may have contributed to fire risks by allowing combustible vegetation to accumulate over time. “The success of suppression today does load the dice for bigger fires tomorrow,” observed Park Williams, professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Efforts to counter the expansion of wildfires include proposals to reintroduce traditional land management practices such as grazing. Dr. Chuvieco noted that restoring goat and sheep grazing on former farmland could help control excess vegetation, but stressed that this depends on having sufficient people in rural areas to care for the animals—a challenge given the aging and declining population of Spain’s countryside.

Tiago Oliveira, a researcher in forest and wildfire governance at the University of Lisbon, suggested that European governments could foster more sustainable land management by supporting private investment in forest restoration and incentivizing grazing through the promotion of local agricultural products. He also cautioned against focusing wildfire responses primarily on technological measures such as firefighting aircraft, arguing for policies that encourage proactive land stewardship and community involvement.

“We don’t need more airplanes,” Oliveira said. “We need better policies, better incentives.”