August 2026 – Week 1
This week’s live blog is continuing to bring you up to speed with the extreme European wildfires extensive and large amount of wildfires are breaking out as a result of months of extreme heat and dry conditions.
We will track the active and emerging wildfires and report on the fatalities and overall impacts as data comes in, and will look at how governments are responding to the wildfire and crisis combined with viewpoints from experts.
It is updated dayly for the remainder of the week and into early next week.
Last week’s live blog can be found here.
Key developments we are tracking this week:
- Second week of European-wide wildfires
- France and Spain remains the most impacted areas
- Fourth heatwave since May hits several parts of Europe
Latest
Thursday 30th of July 2026
15:40 GMT
The current European wildfire picture: While the situation are improving in France and Spain, the overall situation in Europe is grim.
According EFFIS so far 434,976 hectares (ha) have burned and there’s 1,407 active wildfires.
This is significantly up from last week’s 254,388 ha and 1,254 active wildfires.
15:20 GMT
Spain: Similar positive moves are coming from Spain where the prime minister Pedro Sánchez today lifted a state of emergency that had been imposed after it threatened areas near the capital of Madrid. The prefect’s office said they had stopped expanding emergency areas with almost no flames left.
Wednesday thousands of evacuees were allowed to return home and only a thousand still remains.
15:10 GMT
France: Authorities in France are hoping they have turned a corner and have hit peak wildfire as evacuated people are able to return home.
The of prefect of Bordeaux’s Gironde region, the worst impacted wildfire area in the country, who gave the go-ahead for nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 evacuees to go home.
14:40 GMT
News update: In case you missed it, below is our story on the record-breaking wildfire in France:
Earlier updates
Wednesday 29th of July 2026
23:00 GMT
Greece: While France and Spain have been taking the majority of the 2026 European wildfires, other parts of the continent is causing concerns with wildfires in Greece and Turkey spreading and causing evacuations.
In Greece the wildfires have claimed the lives of three firefighters.
Tuesday 28th of July 2026
22:10 GMT
Spain: The largest wildfire in Spain, the 2026 Almería wildfire, that started on the 9th of July in the region of Andalusia and is still active have so far claimed the lives of 14 people and have burned at least 7,000 hectares (ha) and is the worst in Andalusian history.
Monday 27th of July 2026
16:10 GMT
EU: The European Union (EU) has warned that it may not be before November before the record-breaking wildfires have all been extinguished.
16:00 GMT
Heatwave: France and Germany, the two countries that more than any European countries are impacted by the European wildfires are in a race against time to extinguish as many fires as possible before the next heatwave hits in the coming days.
For earlier updates see our previous European wildfires live blog below:
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Categories: climate change, Europe, impacts, live updates, Weather, wildfires
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