Blazes ruin million-plus hectares in record year

WILDFIRES have torched more than a million hectares across the European Union this year, data shows, making 2025 the worst on record.

- BY NADA FARHOUD

The data also shows records have been broken for the amount of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.

This summer's infernos emptied villages and forced farmers to become firefighters as the blazes engulfed four times as much land as the average for the same period in the past two decades.

Data from the European Forest Fire Information System, which goes back to 2003, shows 1,015,024 hectares have burned this year, breaking the record of 988,544 hectares only set in 2017.