According to EFFIS, the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System, around 649,000 hectares had burned across the European Union between 1 January and 5 September 2026, with roughly 11,000 hectares added in a single week at the start of September. EFFIS only maps fires of about 30 hectares or larger, so the real burned area is higher.
Measured from mid-June alone, more than a thousand wildfires torched some 540,000 hectares — an area more than twice the size of Luxembourg — and fires in Spain and France forced over 300,000 people to leave their homes.
Why the numbers keep climbing
- Europe is warming faster than any other continent, roughly twice the global average
- Fire weather records — temperature, wind and fuel dryness combined — were broken repeatedly through July
- Rural depopulation and abandoned agricultural land have left continuous, unmanaged fuel
- Seasons now start earlier and finish later; September fires like Benahavís are no longer exceptional
What it changes for homeowners
Fire services are sized for a normal season. In a season like 2026, multiple large incidents run at once and resources are allocated to protecting life and town centres first. A hillside villa is rarely at the top of that list — not through negligence, but through arithmetic.
That is the practical argument for on-site defence: it does not compete with anyone else for a truck, and it works whether or not a crew arrives.
Sources
Protecting a property in a high-risk area?
We survey homes across Marbella, Benahavís, Estepona and Sotogrande and specify a system sized to the property and its terrain.