Tracking the wildfires in Europe, in maps and charts
By Koko Nakajima, Sam Hart, Becky Pinnington, Andrew Freedman, Renée Rigdon, Lou Robinson, CNN(CNN) —During the past 20 years, Europe has seen an increase in the area of land burned annually. The worst. . .
, Sam Hart, Becky Pinnington, Andrew Freedman, Renée Rigdon, Lou Robinson, CNN(CNN) —During the past 20 years, Europe has seen an increase in the area of land burned annually. The worst wildfire year on record occurred in 2025, when more than 1 million hectares burnedacross the European Union. 🔥Get your forecast in the CNN Weather appThe 20-year average through 2025 stands at about388,000 hectares annually, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. CNN is monitoring Europe’s largest active wildfires. Information on this page is updated periodically during the day. France and Spain are worst affectedHundreds of thousands of people in France and Spain have been evacuated from their homes, and wildfires have spread farther than they do on average in an entire year. Firefightersare battling wildfiresclose to the cities of Bordeaux and Madrid. France says the fires arefar from overand couldburn for months, while Spanish authoritiesyesterday said more than 131 square miles of land had been scorched by the fires near Madrid, as exhausted evacueesawait a return home. The wildfires raging in France are so intense they havecreated “fire clouds,” a never-before-seen phenomenon in the country, authorities say. Temperatureswill climb to above-average highsacross fire-ravaged areas of France and Spain over the next week, with no signs of rainfall in sight. These wildfires are not “a succession of isolated events” but “the most painful expression of a climate emergency,” saidSpain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. A rapidly warming climate – Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet – and abrupt shifts from wet to dry conditions have contributed to more intense and destructive fire seasons in recent years, particularly in Western and Southern Europe. The fires erupt across the continent. The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc. , a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that Spanish authorities estimated more than 100 square miles have been burned in the area near Madrid.