32 fires still active and 50,000 hectares burned since the start of the year: Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez sounded the alarm on Friday July 24 on the scale of the fires currently ravaging France. “If you take the reference compared to last year, it’s almost times three,” he said.
While the month of July is not yet over, several indicators already show that the 2026 forest fire season is among the most severe ever observed in France. Over the period from January to mid-July, 42,000 hectares had already burned, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis). At the same period in 2025, the balance stood at just over 23,000 hectares according to the Copernicus Institute, or almost half as much.
The gap appears even greater when compared to the average recorded over the last twenty years. Between 2006 and 2025, the average area burned in France between the start of the year and mid-July amounts to around 9,300 hectares, according to Effis data. The toll recorded in 2026 represents almost five times this average, a sign of a particularly intense and early fire season.
Fires favored by heatwaves
The fire season also started early this year. The fires “come almost two weeks, three weeks before the usual periods”, warned the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, at the beginning of July. Worse still, as of February 25, 2026, well before the start of the forest fire season, nearly 15,000 hectares had already burned in France according to Effis.
The previous record episode remains that of 2022, a year considered historic for fires in France. The month of July was then particularly destructive, with nearly 27,000 hectares going up in smoke, particularly during fires of considerable magnitude which had already ravaged the Gironde. In total, 66,300 hectares had burned by the end of this record year. A figure already almost equal in 2026 while the fire season is far from over.
These extreme episodes are linked to weather conditions which favor the appearance and rapid spread of fires. Prolonged heat waves dry out soils and make vegetation and forests much more flammable. In 2022, France experienced three episodes of heatwave which followed one another during the summer, contributing to an exceptional drought and an increase in fire outbreaks.
In 2026, the country also faced several episodes of intense heat, including a heat wave in June during which the mercury exceeded 40°C in several regions. Some temperature records set during the historic heatwave of 2003 have even been exceeded. This heatwave contributed to a drying out of the earth which now explains the exceptional scale of this summer’s fires. Enough to further revive fears as meteorologists warn of the arrival of a possible fourth heat wave.
