Major wildfires in Europe are starting earlier in the year, becoming more frequent, doing more damage and getting harder to stop.
Woodland is littered with combustible material, says Johann Goldammer, head of the Global Fire Monitoring Center, an advisory body to the United Nations. That includes things like dead tree trunks and fallen branches, dead leaves and desiccated grass.
The European Union noted this month that over the past five years the bloc has witnessed its most intense wildfires on record and that the continent’s current drought could become its worst ever. The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the global average, according to the U.N.. A passenger shared this footage of wildfires surrounding his train in Spain. Firefighters are battling wildfires in Spain, Portugal and France.The droughts and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight, as conditions make it easier for them to spread quickly. Scientists say climate change will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
“This is not an act of god,” Otto says of the more frequent wildfires. “This is, to a large degree, our doing and we have quite a lot of to do something about it.”
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