This summer, enormous wildfires swept across Europe, leaving huge swathes of Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus scorched.
Now, scientists have blamed climate change for the deadly blazes.
According to a study by World Weather Attribution (WWA), the wildfires were made 10 times more likely by global warming.
WWA called its findings ‘concerning.’
‘Our study finds an extremely strong climate change signal towards hotter and drier conditions,’ said Theodore Keeping, a researcher at Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College in London.
‘Today, with 1.3°C of warming, we are seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that has pushed firefighters to their limit.’
Worryingly, the experts say the worst is yet to come.
‘We are heading for up to 3°C this century unless countries more rapidly transition away from fossil fuels,’ Mr Keeping added.
This summer, enormous wildfires swept across Europe, leaving huge swathes of Turkey, Greece , and Cyprus scorched. Now, scientists have blamed climate change for the deadly blazes. Pictured: a forest fir in Limassol province, Cyprus,in July 2025
Pictured: the maximum daily temperature on 26th July, 2025, compared to the average annual maximum temperature in the 1990-2020 period
This summer’s fires killed 20 people, forced 80,000 to evacuate and burned more than one million hectares (2.47 million acres).
According to WWA’s analysis, they were 22 per cent more intense this year than last – making 2025 Europe’s worst recorded year of wildfires.
Hundreds of wildfires that broke out in the eastern Mediterranean in June and July were driven by temperatures above 40°C (about 104°F), extremely dry conditions and strong winds.
The study found winter rainfall ahead of the wildfires had dropped by about 14 per cent since the pre–industrial era, when a heavy reliance on fossil fuels began.
It also determined that because of climate change, weeklong periods of dry, hot air that primes vegetation to burn are now 13 times more likely.
In addition, the analysis found an increase in the intensity of high–pressure systems that strengthened extreme northerly winds, known as Etesian winds, that fanned the wildfires.
Gavriil Xanthopoulos, research director at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization in Greece, said firefighters used to be able to wait for such winds to die down to control fires.
‘It seems that they cannot count on this pattern anymore,’ Xanthopoulos said.
This summer’s fires killed 20 people, forced 80,000 to evacuate and burned more than one million hectares (2.47 million acres). Pictured: wildfires in Patras city, Greece, earlier this month
According to WWA’s analysis, this year’s wildfires were 22 per cent more intense this year than last – making 2025 Europe’s worst recorded year of wildfires. Pictured: a woman cries following a wildfire in Turkey in August 2025
More study is needed to understand how the wind patterns are reaching high velocities more often, he said.
Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor in Earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University who was not involved in the WWA research, said its summary and key figures were consistent with existing literature and his understanding of how climate change is making weather more conducive to wildfire.
Climate change is ‘loading the dice for more bad wildfire seasons’ in the Mediterranean, Lehner said.
The amount of land in North America devastated by wildfires each year is set to rise, according to new research (file photo)
The ‘Thomas Fire’ destroyed 281,893 acres in California in December 2017.
Additionally, British Columbia’s Nazko Complex Fire last year consumed more than a million acres, making it the largest ever recorded in the province.
But the amount of land destroyed by wildfires each year will only go up in western and northern North America in the years to come, according to a new report published in the journal Plos One.
Up to 90 percent of US wildfires are caused by people, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
These fires can be initiated by unattended campfires, piles of burning debris, haphazardly discarded cigarettes or arson.
The remaining tenth of wildfires not started by humans are attributed to either lighting or lava.