Below you can find recent data on the wildfire situation in the EU, sourced from the European Forest Fires Information System (EFFIS), part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service and implemented by the JRC.
During summer, this page is updated every Thursday to include data up to the previous Wednesday, as soon as the new data are available from the EFFIS seasonal trend statistics page.
All data presented here cover fires larger than 30 hectares.
Wildfire situation in the EU as of 23 September 2026 (daily update)
Important notice
This page was updated with data from EFFIS on 24 September 2026 at 11:12 CEST.
Please note that the data displayed here may be refined some minutes, hours or days after each update, as more precise satellite imagery becomes available. As a result, the values shown on this page may differ from those in the EFFIS statistics portal.
Since all updates are automatically reflected in EFFIS, we recommend checking the values shown here against the EFFIS statistics portal to ensure you are using the most up-to-date data available.
Evolution of burnt areas in the EU as of 23 September (weekly update)
As of 23 September 2026, the area affected by fires has reached 678 978 hectares.
This is below the area recorded by the same date in 2025 (the worst year on record) but exceeds the long-term average of the last 20 years (2006–2025) of 355 397 ha.
Fire danger forecast
Very extreme fire danger anomalies are forecasted across southern and central France, and parts of northern Spain and Portugal. Similar conditions also expected over northwestern Russia. Extreme to very high fire danger to cover much of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, the Balkans, and areas toward the Caucasus, with isolated areas over southern England and southern Scandinavia. Most of central and eastern Europe, Ireland, Scandinavia, and the Black Sea region remain at low fire danger.
Weather forecast for the week of 28 September - 04 October 2026
Temperature anomaliesStrong temperature anomalies across most of Europe. The strongest warm anomaly to cover central Europe, France, the Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia, and western Russia. Moderate temperature anomalies across the British Isles, Italy, and the Balkans. Temperatures lower than expected in Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, over the Sahara and around Iceland.
Rainfall anomaliesBelow-average rainfall is forecasted across most of the Mediterranean basin, central and eastern Europe, the western Balkans, and north across Poland, the Baltic states, and western Russia. Above-average rainfall in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, the British Isles, the north Atlantic, the southern side of the Mediterranean basin, and the Caucasus region.
About these data
Fires presented here are approximately 30 hectares or larger and may include fires set intentionally for the purpose of vegetation management.
Note that this data might differ from that reported by national monitoring systems due to the use of different methodologies and definitions (e.g. differences in the size of the fires mapped or how a wildfire is categorised).
More on EFFIS' methods and data
• EFFIS burned areas are manually mapped by trained analysts. Analysts inspect satellite imagery and delineate the boundaries of the wildfires, using several ancillary data sources to support the process. The satellite imagery used in this process includes images from several sensors (e.g. MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel-2). Fire perimeters are updated and refined when more recent or higher resolution imagery is available. These updates can take place up to 8 times per day. Due to challenging conditions such as cloud cover and smoke, some images may not be suitable for mapping. This may result in a delayed mapping of some fires. In the final EFFIS records, every single fire perimeter is mapped with a good quality high-resolution satellite image (e.g. Sentinel-2).
• While thermal anomalies are supporting data sources in the mapping process, they are not the primary data source. Hot spots from thermal sensors (e.g. MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel-3) help locate and prioritise the areas where to search for active wildfires. They also provide information about the evolution of the fires. However, EFFIS' mapping of burnt areas is based on optical imagery (e.g. MODIS, VIIRS, Sentinel-2). Visual interpretation of optical imagery ensures that non-fire heat sources, such as photovoltaic installations, are not mistakenly mapped as burned areas.
• Very small fires may be below EFFIS' detection threshold, but these small events account for only a small fraction of total burned area. Due to satellite resolution limits EFFIS cannot detect very small fires. However, their omission does not significantly affect the overall burned-area figures. The areas mapped in EFFIS represent about 95% of the total area that burns in the EU every year.
• EFFIS mapping process captures unburned islands within the perimeter of the wildfires. The final delineation of wildfire perimeters uses Sentinel-2 imagery at 20 metres resolution. This resolution allows a detailed delineation of burned areas and the identification of unburned patches within fire perimeters. While very small patches may not be detected, most significant unburned islands are excluded from the burned-area totals.
• EFFIS includes prescribed and controlled burns. These fires are intentionally mapped because they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and, in some cases, can become uncontrolled. While some national datasets may identify them as prescribed burns, such information is not consistently available across Europe, limiting EFFIS' ability to systematically flag or exclude them.