Climate Change Made Wildfires Deadlier Than Ever!
Climate change worsened wildfires in Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.
A recent study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, released on August 28, 2025, reveals that climate change significantly intensified the massive wildfires that ravaged Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus this summer. The fires, which claimed 20 lives, forced the evacuation of 80,000 people, and scorched over 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres), were 22% more intense due to rising global temperatures and reduced rainfall, marking 2025 as Europe’s worst year for wildfires on record.
The study highlights how extreme weather conditions—temperatures exceeding 40°C, severe drought, and powerful winds—fueled hundreds of wildfires across the eastern Mediterranean in June and July. The WWA, a coalition of researchers investigating the links between climate change and extreme weather events, described the findings as “concerning.”
Theodore Keeping, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, emphasized the escalating impact of climate change: “With 1.3°C of warming, we are witnessing unprecedented wildfire behavior that has stretched firefighting capabilities to their limits. Without a rapid transition from fossil fuels, we could face up to 3°C of warming this century.”
The analysis indicates that winter rainfall in the region has decreased by approximately 14% since the pre-industrial era, largely due to the heavy reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, weeklong periods of hot, dry air that prime vegetation for burning are now 13 times more likely because of climate change. The study also noted a surge in high-pressure systems that intensified Etesian winds, northerly gusts that exacerbated the spread of the fires.
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Gavriil Xanthopoulos, research director at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems of the Hellenic Agricultural Organisation in Greece, noted a shift in firefighting challenges: “Firefighters once relied on Etesian winds subsiding to control fires, but this pattern is no longer reliable.” He called for further research into the increasing frequency of high-velocity wind patterns.
Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor in Earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study, affirmed that the WWA’s findings align with existing research. He described climate change as “loading the dice” for more severe wildfire seasons in the Mediterranean, underscoring the urgent need for global action to mitigate its effects.
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