The extent of wildfires has hit a record high in 2022, with more than 62,000 hectares burned as of August 20 while the fire season is not over yet. The European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), which since 2006 has recorded the fires detected by the satellite images of the European observation program Copernicus, makes it possible to analyze the unprecedented scale of this year’s events.

Since the beginning of the year, the area burned in France has been 7.5 times larger than the annual average over the last fifteen years (2006-2021). It even exceeds the maximum that was measured over a whole year. However, these figures should be treated with caution. The fires detected come from satellite data and the Effis does not distinguish their origin: some can be triggered voluntarily and in a controlled manner, such as to extinguish by burning (burning) or counterfires triggered by firefighters.

Traditionally, the departments located on the Mediterranean edge in the south-east of the country are very exposed to fires, but in 2022 it is the Gironde that saw the largest area of ​​forest disappear (26,726 hectares on August 22, more than 267 km²).

Another unusual phenomenon: Brittany, or the normally spared Jura and Vosges mountains, fell victim to large summer fires. In addition, in 2022 we see a very large increase in burned areas in several regions: in more than a quarter of the French departments, it even exceeds the annual average by a factor of 10.

“Extraordinary” lights

However, this wildfire season is also marked by the occurrence of fires that are “exceptional” in terms of their intensity, speed of spread, burned area or even duration. They are also sometimes referred to as “megafire”a term that appeared in the United States without however having a precise definition or covering the same realities in Europe, California or Australia.

The season so far has been marked by nine fires across 1,000 hectares, while the previous maximum was five in 2017. Three of these took place around the Mediterranean arc, but three more took place in the Gironde, to which are added three other outbreaks: one in Ardèche, one in Maine-et-Loire and one in Finistère covering 1,843 hectares in the Arrée mountains devastated.

The “non-standard” character is also evident in fires, admittedly smaller, but of a magnitude never seen before in certain massifs: almost 700 hectares in the law ; Almost 80 hectares in the Vosges with 79 fire starts in one week.

Lots of conifers

Another piece of information from Effis is the nature of the floors burned. Coniferous forests were disproportionately affected: more than a quarter of the area burned compared to less than 9% in 2020 and 2021. A peculiarity related to the fires in the Landes and Gironde, the forests mostly planted with pine trees, although almost 8,900 hectares consisted of low vegetation counted in the category “other natural spaces”.

The huge charred areas are sometimes elusive. The almost 62,200 hectares (622 km²), which have gone up in smoke since the beginning of the year, represent an area slightly smaller than that of the inner suburbs of Paris (657 km²), but exceeds that of inner-city Paris (105 km²), Marseilles (241 km²) and even the entire Lyon metropolitan area (534 km²).