While Madrid braces for “difficult hours ahead”, Portugal puts municipalities on maximum wildfire alert. Which countries have suffered the worst damage so far?
Spain is the EU country that’s been worst hit by this year’s wildfires, recording the highest share of burned land in Europe relative to its size in 2026.
That’s more than 200,000 hectares, or around 0.4% of the country’s territory, according to the EU’s Earth observation programme Copernicus.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that difficult hours lay ahead, after more than 90,000 peoplewere forced to evacuate areas around Madrid and Ávila.
Neighbouring Portugal is also facing a severe fire season, recording the EU’s second-highest proportion of burned land, at 0.3%.
On Monday, every district in northern and central Portugal, along with the southern district of Faro in the Algarve, was placed under the highest fire risk alert.
Yet some non-EU countries, like Ukraine or Montenegro, reported even worse rates.
How much damage have the 2026 wildfires done?
France was another country hit hard, with around 260,000 people evacuated, and the southwestern department of Gironde suffering the worst damage.
Meanwhile, the EU as a whole could be bound for its worst wildfire season on record.
The bloc has already endured around 1,200 fires in 2026, which is more than double the annual average of 569, says the EU’s Forest Fire Information System.
So far, more than 250,000 hectares have gone up in flames, according to figures from the European Commission. To put that into perspective, that’s roughly the size of Luxembourg.
With much of the summer still ahead, the total is on track to pass 2025’s record of more than 270,000 hectares.
How are the fires affecting the environment?
Copernicus estimates that the 2026 wildfires have already spread more than 8 tonnes of CO₂ across the EU.
An average citizen emits around 5.55 tonnes over a whole year.
As “below-average rainfall” is also expected for this week, the situation is likely to get even worse, with “the strongest deficit stretching from France through the Alps and into the Balkans”.
“Above-average rainfall spans Scandinaa
