How improved fire suppression may be fueling Europe’s megafires

On an insufferably hot afternoon in central Portugal, a flame suddenly appeared. Next to it, a list of how many men were on the scene; the number of engines, planes, and helicopters; and how many hectares of land were ablaze.Anyone with a smartphone running Fogos (“Fires” in English) could see all of this. Fogos is a wildfire tracking app with real-time info on what’s burning and where. In recent weeks, it has veritably twinkled as new fires appeared by the dozens.On this day in mid-July firefighters descend on a small but dangerous burn, near a village called São Gabriel. Spotters in the mountains have called the fire in, and a rapid response force attacks from the ground and air. It’s a brush fire on the edge of vast woodlands. Firefighters hose down embers close to a road as water helicopters target a nearby stand of trees. Within hours the fire is extinguished. The crews head out, either back to base or toward the next emergency. Why We Wrote This Europe is dealing with record-breaking wildfires. Some of them are so intense, the authorities are unable to contain them. Climate change is part of the story. But forest management is another factor. The incident is a textbook example of something Portugal – and Spain, next door – do increasingly well: suppressing small- to medium-sized fires quickly and efficiently before they get out of hand. It’s caught the attention of other parts of Europe where the wildfire season has been particularly devastating this summer. Dutch firefighters, for example, have been training in Spain this summer, working alongside some of the most experienced crews on the continent.And yet for all of the Iberian Peninsula’s preparedness, record-sized fires have burned out of control here. Likewise in southern France, where a wildfire outside the city of Bordeaux has devoured tens of thousands of hectares and prompted authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of residents and summer tourists. Volunteer and professional firefighters in Cardosos, Portugal, stand at the ready for any nearby wildfires July 10, 2026. Portugal is stationing rapid response teams like this throughout the country to put out fires faster. Climate change is partly to blame. But experts also point to what they call the “fire paradox.” As we get better at putting them out, more wildfires also escape human control and evolve into what is sometimes called next-generation fires that cannot be stopped.“We do not do enough fuel management,” says José Miguel Pereira, a wildfires expert at the University of Lisbon’s School of Agronomy. By fuel, Mr. Pereira was referring to forest vegetation, from undergrowth to trees themselves – essentially, anything and everything that can burn.“The forest surface doesn’t need to become squeaky clean,” he says. “But it needs to have controllable fuel loadings that will guarantee that the fire will not become intense.”Next-gen firesIf that fuel doesn’t get removed – by clearing undergrowth and thinning trees – and if so many small fires are put out quickly, the forest vegetation only grows denser. At that point, Mr. Pereira says, intense heat or a dry lightning storm can set off something explosive.“We’re actually saving fuels to have them burn under the most severe meteorological conditions,” he adds.Making things more dangerous, the last two years have seen lots of rain during springtime across southern Europe, followed by long dry-spells in summer. That means abundant undergrowth dries out, helping to create the sort of fuel load Mr. Pereira warns about.The result is that Europe is now experiencing wildfires that are impossible to extinguish. Suppression strategies melt away before these next-gen blazes, replaced instead by calls to evacuate. Only favorable shifts in the winds and weather help firefighters win the upper hand.Experts say this is also because government authorities choose to invest in suppression – including trucks and planes and firefighting personnel – instead of programs to reduce the odds that wildfires will grow beyond control.There are proven ways to lower fire risk, from controlled burnings to reintroducing grazing animals, to clearing undergrowth and thinning dense forests by hand and machine. But none of this is happening at a scale to make a real difference. Members of the Military Emergencies Unit refresh the area after putting out a fire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, Community of Madrid, Spain, July 26, 2026. For one, the woods are too vast. More than half of Spain is made up of forestland, and in Portugal it’s more than two-thirds. The cost for any government to manage so much territory is prohibitive. And at any rate, authorities’ hands are often tied, since most rural land is privately owned.Forest management presents land owners with challenges, too. It costs them money, and many absentee owners have moved away from their rural holdings in search of work in cities. So the forests are allowed to grow bigger, denser, and supercharged with highly flammable fuel.Long-term vs. quick fixesReversing the exodus from the countryside, in other words luring people back from urban centers, requires not only lots of money but an entire restructuring of society. There need to be sustainable plans in place to keep people there, with meaningful jobs, and a decent quality of life. That’s something that can’t happen overnight.Politicians, by and large, opt for quick fixes, like buying the latest firefighting gear, which makes for a better photo op. At a ceremony back in May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez unveiled a host of new trucks, planes, and helicopters. He promised that the country would be ready for anything this summer, after a record number of wildfires in 2025. SOURCE: European Forest Fire Information System, Copernicus Emergency Management System | Jacob Turcotte/Staff Today, the prime minister’s government recognizes it can do nothing in the face of at least two megafires except evacuate people by the tens of thousands. Mr. Sanchez is now calling for a “national pact” to address this climate emergency, but he hasn’t said how much emphasis he’d place on forest management and fire prevention.In Spain’s northeast, which so far this summer has been comparatively quiet on the wildfire front, residents are nonetheless nervous. The trauma of a megafire in 2021, near the Catalan village of Santa Coloma de Queralt, has not faded.“I barely escaped our pig farm with my son, by putting wet towels over our heads and running,” said one elderly man in the village square on a recent day. He didn’t want to give his name because he wanted to avoid getting blowback for stirring up old anxieties.“We lost 500 pigs” that day, he says. When asked if the government had taken steps to make sure such a fire can’t happen again, he shakes his head.“After the last fire, they were supposed to clear the burned woods, redo the fire roads,” the man says. “Nothing’s been done. No one’s even come around to check on me.”