Wildfires in Greece and Cyprus Intensified by Climate Change, New Study Finds

The record-setting wildfires that swept through Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey this summer were fueled by conditions made significantly worse by climate change, according to new research by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative.

The study concludes that the fires, which killed 20 people, forced 80,000 to flee their homes, and destroyed more than 1 million hectares of land (2,47 million acres), were 22 percent more intense than they would have been without human-driven warming.

The 2025 season is now considered the worst on record for Europe, with the eastern Mediterranean at its epicenter. In June and July, hundreds of blazes erupted simultaneously, ignited under scorching temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), parched soils, and relentless winds.

Strong climate fingerprint

“Our study shows an extremely strong fingerprint of climate change toward hotter and drier conditions,” said Theodore Keeping, a researcher at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy.

He warned that current warming of 1.3 degrees Celsius has already pushed firefighting systems to their limits. Without a swift global shift away from fossil fuels, he added, “we are on track for around 3 degrees of warming within this century.”

Drivers of the Disaster

The WWA report identified several key factors behind the unprecedented scale of the fires:

• Rainfall shortages: Winter precipitation was 14 percent lower than in pre-industrial times, leaving vegetation unusually dry.
• Prolonged dry spells: Heatwaves and droughts lasting a week or more—conditions that prime vegetation for combustion—are now 13 times more likely.
• Shifting wind patterns: Intensified high-pressure systems strengthened the Etesian or Meltemi winds, which spread flames rapidly.

Firefighting Challenges

For firefighters on the ground, this shift has proven critical. “In the past, crews would wait for the winds to calm before regaining control,” explained Gavriil Xanthopoulos, a forest fire researcher with the Hellenic Agricultural Organization. “It seems they can no longer rely on that pattern.”

Independent experts have backed the study’s conclusions. Cornell University climate scientist Flavio Lehner, who was not involved in the research, said the findings align with broader scientific evidence.

“Climate change is loading the dice for more severe fire seasons,” he noted.

A Warning for the Future

The WWA (World Weather Attribution) also calculated that weather conditions favorable to large-scale wildfires are now ten times more likely in the eastern Mediterranean compared with the pre-industrial past. This finding underscores how southern Europe has become a climate hotspot, where global warming is turning seasonal fire risks into catastrophic events.

The 2025 fires left not only a scar across landscapes from the Dodecanese to Cyprus but also a stark warning. Scientists say Europe must treat wildfires not as isolated disasters but as predictable outcomes of climate change—requiring urgent emissions cuts, stronger adaptation policies, and greater investment in firefighting resilience.