Key Takeaways
- Spain's deadliest fire in decades. A wildfire near Los Gallardos in Almería, southern Spain, has killed at least 12 people, with more injured and missing, making it the deadliest Spanish wildfire in about 20 years. A separate fire in central Greece killed two.
- Driven by record-breaking heat. June 2026 was the hottest June on record for Western Europe, averaging 3.05°C above normal, with temperature anomalies peaking around +9°C in France and Germany and a high of 45.1°C in southern Spain.
- Above average, below 2025's record. By early July, EU wildfires had burned roughly 170,000 hectares, well above the seasonal average of about 78,000 ha but far below 2025, the worst year on record, when more than 1.08 million hectares burned.
- Spain and Portugal hit hardest. Spain has lost around 50,000 hectares to 14 major fires and Portugal about 30,000 across thousands of ignitions. France, Greece, Italy and Turkey are also battling significant blazes.
- Europe's biggest firefighting mobilisation yet. The EU's rescEU fleet has 22 firefighting planes and 5 helicopters on standby across 12 countries, with 777 pre-positioned firefighters, the most since the programme began. Portugal and France both activated EU assistance in early July.
Europe is in the grip of another destructive wildfire summer. A punishing sequence of heatwaves has left the Mediterranean tinder-dry, and by early July 2026 fires had killed at least 14 people, forced tens of thousands to flee, and scorched swathes of Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Italy and Turkey. The map below shows the major blazes of the season and the countries bearing the brunt.
It is not the worst year Europe has seen, 2025 was far more destructive, but 2026 is already running above the long-term average, and the peak of the fire season is still to come. Here is where the continent is burning, what is driving it, and how Europe is responding.
The deadliest fire: Los Gallardos, Spain
The single deadliest blaze of the season so far tore through the area around Los Gallardos and Bédar in Almería, in Spain’s southern Andalusia region. At least 12 people were killed, with several more injured and others reported missing, many of them foreign nationals. It is the deadliest wildfire in Spain in roughly two decades.
Many of the victims were caught while trying to flee, some in their cars and others on foot along a dry river bed that became a trap as the flames raced downhill. Investigators are examining a downed power line as a possible cause, though the local utility has disputed that account. More than 1,400 people were evacuated from the surrounding villages.
A season stoked by record heat
The fires are inseparable from the heat. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, June 2026 was the hottest June on record for Western Europe, averaging 20.7°C, some 3.05°C above the 1991 to 2020 norm. Temperature anomalies peaked at around +9°C over France and Germany, and the mercury hit 45.1°C at Andújar in southern Spain. France recorded its hottest day since national records began in 1947.
Three separate heatwaves swept the continent between late May and early July, drying out vegetation and priming it to burn. Scientists at World Weather Attribution called it the most severe heatwave ever recorded over the region and linked its intensity directly to human-caused climate change. The heat itself has been far deadlier than the flames: researchers estimate more than 5,600 excess deaths across European cities during the late-June wave alone, a toll separate from the wildfire deaths.
Where Europe is burning
Spain has been hit hardest, with roughly 50,000 hectares burned across 14 major fires by early July, according to EFFIS satellite monitoring. Beyond Los Gallardos, fires struck Les Gavarres in Catalonia (where a worker using an angle grinder was arrested), the cork-oak forests of the Sierra de Espadán in Castellón, and protected land in Aragón.
Portugal has recorded around 30,000 hectares burned across thousands of ignitions, with a large fire near Vouzela sending a smoke plume some 620 km long. In France, a fast-moving blaze in the Pyrénées-Orientales near the Spanish border forced more than 10,000 people from around two dozen towns and villages. Greece has fought fires near Thessaloniki, west of Athens and in the central Fthiotida region, where a man and his 12-year-old son died. Outside the EU, Turkey has logged nearly 50,000 hectares burned. A note of caution on the figures: the season is young, and national and satellite estimates differ in method and date, so country totals will keep climbing and are best read as provisional.
2026 in context: bad, but not 2025
For all the destruction, 2026 is not (yet) a record year. EFFIS put the EU total at 108,709 hectares as of 24 June, about 39% above the 2006 to 2025 average of 78,466 ha, and the figure climbed past 170,000 ha as the July fires took hold. That is a serious season, but a long way short of 2025, which was the EU’s most destructive wildfire year on record: more than 1.08 million hectares burned, with Germany, Spain, Cyprus and Slovakia all setting national records. The chart above shows how the years compare.
How Europe is responding
Europe has mobilised on an unprecedented scale. Through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, the rescEU fleet has 22 firefighting aeroplanes and 5 helicopters on standby across 12 countries, backed by 777 firefighters pre-positioned in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, the largest such deployment since the scheme began in 2022.
As the fires spread, Portugal activated EU assistance on 3 July and France on 5 July, drawing firefighting aircraft from Italy, Spain, Sweden and Cyprus within hours. The EU is also funding a new permanent fleet of a dozen amphibious water bombers, due from 2027, and a new regional firefighting hub in Cyprus. The aim is to move from emergency scrambles toward a standing, shared European response as fire seasons lengthen.
| Fire | Location | Key impact |
|---|---|---|
| Los Gallardos | Almería, Spain | 12 dead, deadliest of 2026 |
| Pyrénées-Orientales | Southern France | 10,000+ evacuated |
| Vouzela | Viseu, Portugal | 11,000+ ha, 620 km smoke plume |
| Les Gavarres | Catalonia, Spain | 2,200 ha, suspect arrested |
| Fthiotida | Central Greece | 2 dead (father and son) |
| Sierra de Espadán | Castellón, Spain | Cork-oak park, evacuations |
The bottom line
Europe’s 2026 wildfire season is a story of heat as much as fire. Record June temperatures, driven by a warming climate, turned the Mediterranean into a tinderbox, and the sparks did the rest, with deadly results in Spain and Greece. The season is running above average but below 2025’s extreme, and with the hottest weeks of summer still ahead, the coming month will decide how bad 2026 ultimately becomes. For the heat behind the flames, see our map of Europe’s June 2026 heatwave.
Data and references (as of early July 2026):
Image Sources
