Climate Change: Wildfires in Europe Hit Area the Size of Cyprus This Year

Patricia Lamela was driving back to the Galician town of Larouco in northwest Spain when she got the call. It was Aug. 13, just before 7 p.m., and a neighbor told her there was a fire in the forest.

Lamela, the mayor of Larouco, wasn’t surprised by the news. The area around her small village of less than 500 residents had been baking at temperatures above 40C (104F) for over two weeks amid one of the longest and hottest heat waves on record in Spain. Weeds and bushes that had thrived during a particularly wet spring dried up and became fuel to the fire. The absence of people cleaning and maintaining the forest in one of Spain’s least populated regions meant a large blaze was only a matter of time.