France (wildfires)

July 2022 brought a major uptick in forest fires throughout France’s southern and southwestern regions (Les services de l’État en Gironde, 2022a).

By mid-August, myriads of people had been evacuated from their homes in Gironde and Hostens (Les services de l’État en Gironde, 2022b ) and tens of thousands of hectares were destroyed.

The extreme drought plaguing France–like other parts of Europe–from the beginning of the year, predisposed the region to fire. By mid-August, three times as many hectares had burned compared with the decadal average (Service Infographie, 2022).

Overwhelming the French forces, firefighters from as far away as Romania and Poland, along with helicopter crews from Italy, Greece and Sweden, fought August’s “mega-fire” in Gironde.

As with elsewhere in Europe, these fires were worsened by the extreme heat and drought, making the summer the driest ever recorded. Throughout the country, rainfall in July was down by more than 80%, in some areas exceeding 90% compared with past averages (Météo France, 2022).

Read more about heat stress here.

Read more about extreme weather here.