Climate researchers have indicated that climate change is significantly increasing the risk of fires in Europe, increasingly creating extremely dry conditions, which caused huge forest fires in Spain and France in July, writes Politico.
Huge fires have spread around Bordeaux and Madrid since the weekend, forcing mass evacuations and destroying hundreds of homes. The fires, which are considered the most powerful ever seen, are spreading rapidly after heat waves and a prolonged drought.
Global warming has at least doubled the chance of the combination of extremely high temperatures, dry soil and strong winds in France, but in Spain this combination is up to 20 times more common than before. Scientists have previously found that climate change has increased the likelihood of droughts in Europe in the spring and that Western Europe can be hit by record-breaking heat waves in late June every year, both of which contribute to fire danger.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate policy chief, said the huge fires showed how quickly extreme heat and drought caused by climate change could turn a forest fire into a national disaster. He added that the vast use of coal, oil and natural gas continues to heat up the planet, making weather conditions more dangerous and fires more deadly and destructive.
Stiell called for a swift transition to clean energy and a shift away from polluting fossil fuels.
The researchers first looked at risk metrics that included hot, dry and windy weather, as well as areas where the worst fires occurred around Bordeaux and Madrid. They then compared this year’s situation with the worst of last summer and compared the current climate to a simulation of the planet’s climate in the pre-industrial era. The study also found that a similar fire season in southwestern France could occur once every 20 years, while in central Spain once every six years.
The main reason for the increased risk was this year’s dry spring, which followed a very wet winter. The conditions encouraged rapid growth of vegetation, which then dried out, creating a lot of burning material that helped the flames spread rapidly. Claire Barnes, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, said that what is happening in France and Spain is not just an unfortunate coincidence, it is a sign of the effects of human-caused global warming.
Read also: Europe’s weapon in the fight against fires: goats