France has recorded its worst start to a wildfire season in 20 years, with more than 42,000 hectares (103,000 acres) burned across the country between January and mid-July, according to satellite data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), the EU’s wildfire monitoring service. The figure surpasses the previous record set in 2022 and already exceeds the total area burned throughout the whole of 2025.

Fires in the first two weeks of July alone destroyed close to 15,000 hectares, according to an analysis of Effis data by the news agency AFP. The blazes have ranged from the forest of Fontainebleau, just outside Paris, to the mountains of the Var and the Drôme in the south, as well as Corsica.

France, like much of the European continent, is suffering a severe drought following the historic heatwave that struck western Europe in June.

Wildfires across the European Union burned more than 1 million hectares of land in 2025, the first time this threshold has been passed since Effis began recording data in 2006, as fires grow increasingly severe due to climate change.