2009 Mediterranean wildfires | |
---|---|
Date(s) | July 2009 |
Location | Southern Europe and Anatolia |
Statistics | |
Land use | Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub |
Impacts | |
Deaths | 8 |
Non-fatal injuries | 5 |
Ignition | |
Cause | Lightning, arson and ammunition training |
The 2009 Mediterranean wildfires were a series of wildfires that broke out across France, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey in July 2009. Strong winds spread the fire during a hot, dry period of weather killing at least eight people, six of whom were in Spain. Some of the wildfires were caused by lightning, along with arson and military training.
Four Spanish firefighters died in Catalonia on 21 July, and a fifth member died later from injuries on 23 July, as well as a fire engine driver in Teruel. A further two people died from bush fires in Sardinia. More than 120 people were rescued at Capo Pecora on Sardinia by helicopter and civil protection boats. The Arenas prison complex was evacuated and the inmates were temporarily transferred to the beach. [1]
Northern and central Spain saw temperatures of around 40 °C (104 °F) on 21 July. Around 2,000 people were evacuated from hills around the town of Collado Mediano, near Madrid. Aircraft with water and firefighters controlled the fire. [2]
Estimates suggest that 5,000 hectares of forest and bush were affected in the Sierra Cabrera mountain range between Turre and Mojácar in Spain on 14–15 July. 500 people were evacuated, as dozens of firefighters and soldiers controlled the fires, including the use of five helicopters and three aircraft.[ citation needed ] On 23 July, the fires on the Sierra Cabrera on which Mojácar sits flared again, causing damage to the village and other houses in the area and the evacuation of around 1,500 residents. [1]
Outside the French city of Marseille, 1,300 hectares (3211 acres) were destroyed. [1] In Corsica, wildfires led to the destruction of approximately 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of bush and forest resulting in the injuries of five firemen. [1]
More than 320 wildfires affected patches of forest across Greece, although they did affect buildings. [3] Most of them were located on the island of Euboea and the southern Peloponnese. [4]
On 23 July, over 15 hectares of land were destroyed in a landfill site in Bodrum, southwestern Turkey. Over 200 volunteers and 100 firefighters tried to contain the fires across Turkey, which saw temperatures of 48 °C (118 °F) on 25–26 July. [5]
In the Mediterranean region, the current fire frequency due to human activity is considered much larger than the natural rate. [6] 95% of forest fires in Spain are human-induced. [7] [8] The 2009 Mediterranean wildfires occurred during a particularly hot and dry summer period, increasing the risk of wildfires burning out of control once ignited. [2] Temperatures peaked at 44 °C (111 °F) in mainland Spain and reached 37 °C (99 °F) in Gran Canaria. [3] These conditions, combined with insufficient fire-fighting resources and an inadequate official response in some of the affected countries, exacerbated the extent of the damage.
Uncontrolled legal and illegal scrub burning by farmers is a major cause of forest fires in the Mediterranean region. [9] Arson, while still a significant factor, has diminished in Spain and Greece in recent years. Decreasing property values generally and the introduction of legislation in Spain to tackle the issue has diminished the financial incentive to illegally clear forested land for development by burning. [10] Isolated cases of areas in Spain affected by fires caused by lightning strikes include Aragon (Spain), as reported by El País [1] and Mojácar, as suggested by the Spanish Forest Fire Organisation (INFOCA).[ citation needed ] The wildfires outside of Marseille, France, were reported as being caused by military training using tracer bullets. [1] The local government of Corsica believed the fires were caused by arson. [1]
The 2007 Greek forest fires were a series of massive forest fires that broke out in several areas across Greece throughout the summer of 2007. The most destructive and lethal infernos broke out on 23 August, expanded rapidly and raged out of control until 27 August, until they were finally put out in early September. The fires mainly affected western and southern Peloponnese as well as southern Euboea. The death toll in August alone stood at 67 people. In total 85 people lost their lives because of the fires, including several fire fighters.
The Great Fire of Valparaíso started on 12 April 2014 at 16:40 local time, in the hills of the city of Valparaíso, Chile. The wildfire destroyed at least 2,500 homes, leaving 11,000 people homeless. An additional 6,000 people were evacuated from the city, which was placed on red alert and declared a disaster zone. Fifteen people were confirmed killed and ten suffered serious injuries.
The 2016 Portugal wildfires are a series of wildfires that burned across mainland Portugal and the Madeira archipelago in the north Atlantic Ocean during August 2016 that prompted the evacuation of more than one thousand people and destroyed at least 37 homes near Funchal on Madeira island. Flights were also disrupted at Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport due to high levels of smoke.
A series of four initial deadly wildfires erupted across central Portugal in the afternoon of 17 June 2017 within minutes of each other, resulting in at least 66 deaths and 204 injured people.
The 2017 wildfire season involved wildfires on multiple continents. On Greenland, which is mostly covered by ice and permafrost, multiple fires occurred in melted peat bogs, described as "unusual, and possibly unprecedented". Popular media asked whether the wildfires were related to global warming. Research published by NASA states "climate change has increased fire risk in many regions", but caused "greater severity in the colder latitudes" where boreal and temperate forests exist, and scholars have described "a warm weather fluctuation that has become more frequent in recent decades" related to wildfires, without naming any particular event as being directly caused by global warming.
A series of wildfires in Greece, during the 2018 European heat wave, began in the coastal areas of Attica in July 2018. 104 people were confirmed dead from the Mati fires. The fires were, at that time, the second-deadliest wildfire event in the 21st century, after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Australia that killed 173.
During August 2019, a number of forest fires broke out in the Canary Islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote. The fires on the island of Gran Canaria were the most severe, resulting in the loss of large areas of the island's forests and leading to the evacuation of thousands of residents from a number of towns and villages. The intense heat brought by a heat wave and the presence of strong winds, combined with the island's mountainous terrain, made extinguishing activities exceptionally difficult.
The 2020 Córdoba wildfires are a series of wildfires burning through the Córdoba Province in Argentina.
The 2021 Greece wildfires were multiple wildfires in Greece in August 2021, which killed 3 people, injured at least 20 others and burned dozens of homes, after a historic heatwave for the country, with the highest temperatures reaching 47.1 °C (116.8 °F). Authorities evacuated several villages and towns. According to BBC News, Greece experienced the worst heatwave since 1987. These fires were the worst fires in Greece since the 2007 Greek forest fires which burnt more than double the area of the 2021 fires.
In June through August 2022, parts of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa were affected by wildfires. The bulk of the fires affected Mediterranean Countries, with the main areas affected being Algeria, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Starting on 30 January 2023, a series of wildfires began in the South American country of Chile. By early February, the fires had developed into a large outbreak of at least 406 individual fires, several dozen of which were classified as "red alert fires". The fires burned more than 430,000 hectares and resulted in the loss of 24 lives, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency in multiple regions of the country.
In February 2024, a series of wildfires broke out in Chile, affecting multiple regions including Valparaíso, O'Higgins, Maule, Biobío, and Los Lagos. The most severe incidents occurred in the Valparaíso Region as of 5 February 2024. The Chilean government labeled the fires as the country's worst disaster since the 2010 Chile earthquake, and declared a two-day national mourning period.
In July 2023, multiple wildfires started in Greece. They resulted in at least 28 deaths and injured 75 people, with over 80 wildfires being recorded. Seventy-nine people were arrested for arson.
Multiple wildfires broke out across Italy in the summer of 2021. The first wildfires were reported in Sardinia on 24 July, which would go on to become one of the worst affected regions along with Calabria, where five people died, and Sicily, which recorded one further fatality. Wildfires in Lazio on 17 August damaged the estate of the presidential summer residence.
On 15 August 2023, a forest fire broke out on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands of Spain. The fire, driven by the wind, heat, and low humidity levels, caused mass evacuations, widespread damage to the island's flora and fauna, as well as power and water supply cuts in some of the affected municipalities.
The 2024 Portugal wildfires were a series of more than 1,000 wildfires, at least 128 labeled as devastating, that spread through central and northern Portugal between 15 and 20 September 2024, although the fires were controlled by 20 September, authorities and firefighters remained on the ground in order to be vigilant for several more days, burning more than 135,000 hectares of land, resulting in the deaths of at least nine people - amongst them were four firefighters -, the evacuation of several villages, and a response of over 5,000 firefighters with assistance from the European Union.
The 2024 South American wildfires refer to a mega colossal series of wildfires that significantly impacted several neighboring South American countries, including Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Based on Global Wildfire Information System satellite imaging, about 346,112 wildfire hotspots damaged or destroyed 85,866,867 hectares. The massive area burned was primarily caused by anthropogenic climate change and the resulting consequences of the 2023–2024 South American drought on fire conditions. The wildfires caused significant deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and also impacted several other international biomes including the Pantanal wetlands, becoming the second largest series of wildfires in the 21st century next to the 2023–24 Australian bushfire season, with the 2024 Brazil wildfires alone reaching fourth in area burned.
The 2024 Argentina wildfires refer to significant outbreaks of wildfires primarily across Northern and Central Argentina that devastated large stretches of forests and farming land. The intensity and spread of the wildfires markedly increased in August and September 2024 due to drought conditions and elevated temperatures.