The New Normal: Wildfires Reshape Greece and Southern Europe

Firefighting helicopter collects seawater in southeastern Attica, July 2025. © Sanin Mirvic/Corella

Greece is once again facing the harsh reality of summer wildfires. By mid-August 2025, more than 45,000 hectares have already burned across the country, making this one of the five most destructive seasons of the past two decades. On the island of Chios alone, over 10,000 hectares have gone up in flames this year, adding to an alarming statistic: nearly a quarter of the island’s landmass has burned in the last decade.

The blazes have been fed by conditions set in motion long before summer. A severe drought in 2024 brought rainfall levels down by about 40 percent from the seasonal average, with reduced snowfall and drier soils creating an ideal setting for fire. This water shortage has become a silent accelerant, priming forests and shrubland for destruction.

Photo: Burned hillside in southeastern Attica after the July 2025 wildfires. © Sanin Mirvic/Corella

Yet Greece’s fires, destructive as they are, form just one part of a much larger Mediterranean emergency. Across the European Union, 2025 has already become the worst wildfire season since records began in 2006. More than one million hectares of land have been scorched, surpassing even the catastrophic season of 2017. Spain and Portugal alone account for the bulk of the devastation, with massive blazes consuming rural landscapes and threatening towns, olive groves, and vineyards. The environmental toll has been staggering: greenhouse gas emissions from this year’s EU fires are estimated at nearly 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—comparable to the annual emissions of entire countries like Portugal or Sweden.

The broader picture reveals a troubling pattern. Southern Europe’s ecosystems are highly adapted to fire, yet climate change has altered the rhythm and intensity of these natural cycles. Prolonged droughts, hotter summers, and erratic rainfall are transforming the Mediterranean into a region where megafires are no longer exceptional, but expected. Studies have shown that extreme weather conditions in Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus are now ten times more likely than in the past and about 22 percent more intense due to global warming. This means that every year, local firefighting forces are asked to confront scenarios that once would have been considered rare events.

The response, too, has been unprecedented. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated on a record scale, sending planes, helicopters, and ground crews to help overwhelmed national services. Greece has relied on this support repeatedly in recent years, as local firefighting units find themselves stretched thin during peak fire season. Meanwhile, policymakers are beginning to confront an uncomfortable truth: no amount of firepower will suffice if prevention, forest management, and water security remain neglected.

Comparing Greece with its Mediterranean neighbors offers both perspective and warning. While the fires in Spain and Portugal have been larger in sheer scale, the Greek case underscores how climate vulnerability is compounded by geography. Islands like Chios, where large swathes of land can be lost in a matter of days, and regions already weakened by drought, cannot afford to absorb repeated shocks. What is unfolding is not only a test of firefighting resilience but also of long-term adaptation.

The Mediterranean has always lived with fire. But as summers grow hotter, drier, and longer, what was once seasonal risk is fast becoming a chronic condition. Greece’s 2025 wildfires, alongside the record-setting blazes across the EU, serve as a reminder that the climate crisis is not a distant abstraction but a lived reality—one measured in hectares lost, livelihoods threatened, and skies darkened by smoke.