Climate change

Inside Climate News - Wildfires in Europe could burn across about 39 percent more land by the end of the century, even if greenhouse gas emissions decline rapidly over the next few decades, new research shows. With continued high emissions, the burned area could increase as much as 192 percent.

Emissions reductions are the key to reducing wildfire impacts, the study, published Thursday in Global Change Biology, concluded. Improvements in fire prevention, early detection and firefighting could help limit the damage, but ultimately, Europe can’t fight its way out of a worsening climate, the authors warned.

“Our results indicate there could be widespread increases in burned area even under comparatively low warming of around 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.24 degrees Fahrenheit),” said lead author Maik Billing, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. With more warming, wildfires become more prevalent around the Mediterranean and across much of Western and Central Europe, “including areas that to date have not experienced many fires,” he said.