Global warming's fingerprints all over fires in Spain, France, studies show

Key Points:

• Two new studies link human-caused climate change to the extreme fire weather behind recent wildfires in Spain and France, with climate change making such conditions 20 times more likely in Spain and doubling the chances in France.
• Over the past 26 years, warming has tripled the odds of severe fire risk in Spain and increased it by 40% in France, while the number of extreme fire-prone days in Southern Europe has more than doubled and become 50% more intense.
• Factors contributing to increased wildfire risk include record-high temperatures, drought following wet periods that fuel plant growth, land abandonment in Spain, and dense pine groves in France, all exacerbated by climate change.
• Despite improvements in fire suppression and management reducing fires from the 1980s to 2018, recent climate change effects have overwhelmed these gains, making extreme fire weather conditions increasingly unmanageable.
• Scientists emphasize that climate change is already intensifying wildfire risks and call for urgent reductions in fossil fuel burning to prevent further worsening of fire weather conditions beyond adaptation limits.