The first rapid attribution analysis on a wildfire in Europe has found that human-caused climate change made the weather conditions that drove deadly fires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus this summer about 22% more intense.
The study was conducted by 28 climate scientists and researchers as part of the World Weather Attribution Group.
They found that climate change set the scene for the fires by influencing the weather in the months, weeks and days leading up to the wildfires.
Recent data has shown that 2025 has become Europe's worst recorded year of wildfires with more than one million hectares burned.
Hundreds of wildfires broke out in the eastern Mediterranean in June and July this year.
The blazes were driven by back-to-back days above 40C, bone-dry vegetation and winds that reached gale-force levels.
Turkey was the hardest hit, with 17 people killed. Among them were ten firefighters, who died when the winds suddenly changed direction and flames trapped them. Two people were killed in Cyprus and one in Greece.
More than 80,000 people have been forced to evacuate across the countries.
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The World Weather Attribution report says that without climate change, similar events would only occur about once every 100 years. But today, with 1.3C of warming, they are expected about once every 20 years.
Overall, the fire-prone conditions were made about 10 times more likely because of climate change according to today’s report.
It concluded that total winter rainfall in the region has decreased by about 14% leading to drier summer conditions.
It also found that the intense dry heat that primed plants and trees to burn ahead of the fires was about 18% more intense because of climate change.
These factors combined to cause the combination of hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the spread of fires to be about 22% more intense.
The researchers estimate that if global warming reaches 2.6C, which is expected this century under current policies, similar periods of intense hot, dry and windy conditions will become another nine times more likely and 25% more intense.
The researchers expect to find similar results from an ongoing analysis they are conducting for blazes in Spain.
They also note that simultaneous wildfires across Europe are stretching firefighting resources and that more intense events are already outpacing efforts to adapt.
One of the authors, Theodore Keeping, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said the results of the study are concerning.
"Today, with 1.3C of warming, we are seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that has pushed firefighters to their limit. But we are heading for up to 3C this century unless countries more rapidly transition away from fossil fuels," he said.
The World Weather Attribution group includes scientists from universities and meteorological agencies in Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.
