2025 European forest fire risk: How bad can it get? An analysis of risk of damage to infrastructure from forest fire
Forest fires are raging across parts of Europe including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Türkiye and the Balkans, fuelled by extreme heat, wind, and drought. This report investigates how much worse the damage from forest fire could get. The Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) has analysed the risk of damage to property from forest fire to every single state and province in Europe from 1990-2050. In addition to highlighting Europe's most fire-at risk regions, the analysis looks at the contribution of climate change to this increase, and what level of risk governments, insurers, businesses and communities need to prepare for as Europe heats up.
The study calculated projections of Agreggared Damage Risk (ADR) - which represents the total probable amount of physical damage to the built environment - under a high emissions scenario. In 2050, the most at-risk countries (and their most at-risk states) are identified as follows:
- France - Pays de la Loire, Centre-Val de Loire, Nouvelle-Aquitwaine
- Italy - Calabria, Basilicata, Campania
- Spain - Comunidad de Madrid, Andalucía, Castilla y León
- Hungary - Budapest, Bács-Kiskun, Csongrád
- Bulgaria - Smolyan, Burgas, Kardzhali
XDI analysis shows that climate change has already driven a rapid rise in risk of damage to property from forest fire in European Union (EU) countries - yet in many countries, the risk is set to double in just a few decades.
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