Forest fires: in France, in the middle of summer, the area burned is greater than in all of 2019

Gironde, Morbihan, Finistère, Isère, Corsica or Dordogne… the list of departments and regions affected during the summer of 2022 by forest fires – even megafires – is getting longer. The number of hectares burned by the flames already exceeded, at the beginning of August, the level reached over the whole of 2019, the previous “record”.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis, based on observations from the Copernicus space program), France had exceeded the previous maximum recorded on the same date since 2006 on July 16, with 41,250 hectares. of forests gone up in smoke.

The exceptional situation observed in France is found in our European neighbors, since there are nearly four times more fires on the Old Continent in 2022 than the previous fifteen years.