Europe Wildfire Season Tracker

EFFIS rapid perimeters, updated weekly during fire season

Author

Pierre Beaucoral

Published

October 2, 2026

How bad is this fire season, and how would you actually know? This tracker follows Europe’s wildfire season as it unfolds. The 2026 season is now closed: the numbers below are final, and the 2026 season in review gives the verdict. Updates resume next June. Satellites spot wildfires (large ones reliably, and increasingly small ones too), and Europe’s EFFIS service, part of the Copernicus programme, draws the outline of each burned area it can map. During the fire season (June to September) this site refreshes weekly: a pipeline fetches the newest outlines, stores a dated copy under DATA/snapshots/, and every chart re-renders from that copy. Fire sizes are measured directly from the mapped shapes, in a map projection that keeps areas honest, and each fire is assigned to the country it overlaps most. Same method as the 2025 season analysis this project grew from.

Show code

# Reads the SAME cached envelope object as posts/2026.qmd (identical cache
# key via build_envelope) -- nothing heavy is recomputed here.
library(sf)
library(dplyr)
library(tibble)
library(purrr)
library(lubridate)
library(ggplot2)
library(scales)
library(janitor)
library(rnaturalearth)

Sys.setenv(OGR_GEOJSON_MAX_OBJ_SIZE = "0")

source(file.path("R", "helpers.R"))
source(file.path("R", "geo.R"))
source(file.path("R", "cache.R"))
source(file.path("R", "theme.R"))
source(file.path("R", "pipeline.R"))
source(file.path("R", "plots.R"))
source(file.path("scripts", "latest_snapshot.R"))

snap <- latest_snapshot()
stopifnot(!is.na(snap))
eu <- get_eu()

envelope <- build_envelope(
  hist_years = 2017:2025, year_current = 2026L,
  snapshot_dir = snap, eu = eu,
  start_month = 6L, end_month = 9L
)

m <- envelope$meta
as_of_lab <- paste(day(m$as_of_date), month.name[month(m$as_of_date)])

cap_envelope <- sprintf(
  paste(
    "Cumulative burned area since 1 June: the full 2026 season against the 2017–2025",
    "seasons (thin grey lines; band: middle half of those seasons; dashed line:",
    "median), with 2026's weekly burned area underneath. The shaded last 14 days",
    "are still being mapped. The 2026 line stops at its last mapped perimeter (%s)."
  ),
  as_of_lab
)

Season at a glance, as of 30 September 2026

Table 1: Totals count only the parts of each fire inside Europe (snapshot 2026-10-02). Fire counts are not comparable across years because the detection system changed; the median comparison uses burned area. Details on the season page.

How much has burned since 1 June	In how many separate fires	Compared with a typical recent season
786 kha	4,730	163%

Show code

plot_envelope(envelope)

Cumulative burned area since 1 June: the full 2026 season against the 2017–2025 seasons (thin grey lines; band: middle half of those seasons; dashed line: median), with 2026’s weekly burned area underneath. The shaded last 14 days are still being mapped. The 2026 line stops at its last mapped perimeter (30 September).

The full picture (hero and interactive maps, country rankings, raw and normalized by land area, re-burn analysis, and what vegetation is burning) lives on the 2026 season in review.

--- title: "Europe Wildfire Season Tracker" subtitle: "EFFIS rapid perimeters, updated weekly during fire season" author: "Pierre Beaucoral" date: 2026-10-02 execute: freeze: false --- How bad is this fire season, and how would you actually know? This tracker follows Europe's wildfire season as it unfolds. **The 2026 season is now closed**: the numbers below are final, and the **[2026 season in review](posts/2026.qmd)** gives the verdict. Updates resume next June. Satellites spot wildfires (large ones reliably, and increasingly small ones too), and Europe's **EFFIS** service, part of the Copernicus programme, draws the outline of each burned area it can map. During the fire season (**June to September**) this site refreshes **weekly**: a pipeline fetches the newest outlines, stores a dated copy under `DATA/snapshots/`, and every chart re-renders from that copy. Fire sizes are measured directly from the mapped shapes, in a map projection that keeps areas honest, and each fire is assigned to the country it overlaps most. Same method as the [2025 season analysis](posts/2025.qmd) this project grew from. ```{r} #| label: tracker-data # Reads the SAME cached envelope object as posts/2026.qmd (identical cache # key via build_envelope) -- nothing heavy is recomputed here. library(sf) library(dplyr) library(tibble) library(purrr) library(lubridate) library(ggplot2) library(scales) library(janitor) library(rnaturalearth) Sys.setenv(OGR_GEOJSON_MAX_OBJ_SIZE = "0") source(file.path("R", "helpers.R")) source(file.path("R", "geo.R")) source(file.path("R", "cache.R")) source(file.path("R", "theme.R")) source(file.path("R", "pipeline.R")) source(file.path("R", "plots.R")) source(file.path("scripts", "latest_snapshot.R")) snap <- latest_snapshot() stopifnot(!is.na(snap)) eu <- get_eu() envelope <- build_envelope( hist_years = 2017:2025, year_current = 2026L, snapshot_dir = snap, eu = eu, start_month = 6L, end_month = 9L ) m <- envelope$meta as_of_lab <- paste(day(m$as_of_date), month.name[month(m$as_of_date)]) cap_envelope <- sprintf( paste( "Cumulative burned area since 1 June: the full 2026 season against the 2017–2025", "seasons (thin grey lines; band: middle half of those seasons; dashed line:", "median), with 2026's weekly burned area underneath. The shaded last 14 days", "are still being mapped. The 2026 line stops at its last mapped perimeter (%s)." ), as_of_lab ) ``` ## Season at a glance, as of `r as_of_lab` `r m$year_current` | How much has burned since 1 June | In how many separate fires | Compared with a typical recent season | |:---:|:---:|:---:| | **`r lab_si_ha(m$current_cum_ha)`** | **`r comma(m$current_n_fires)`** | **`r if (is.na(m$pct_vs_median)) "n/a (too early in season)" else sprintf("%.0f%%", m$pct_vs_median)`** | : Totals count only the parts of each fire inside Europe (snapshot `r basename(snap)`). Fire *counts* are not comparable across years because the detection system changed; the median comparison uses burned *area*. Details on the [season page](posts/2026.qmd). {#tbl-glance} ```{r} #| label: tracker-envelope #| fig-width: 8 #| fig-height: 6.5 #| fig-cap: !expr cap_envelope plot_envelope(envelope) ``` **The full picture** (hero and interactive maps, country rankings, raw and normalized by land area, re-burn analysis, and what vegetation is burning) lives on the **[2026 season in review](posts/2026.qmd)**.