Fires have already destroyed over 1 million hectares in the European Union in 2025 — a record area larger than Corsica.

In France, 35,600 hectares of forest have been reduced to ashes, particularly in the department of Aude, AFP reported.

This year broke the previous record set in 2017, when 988,524 hectares of forest were destroyed, more than half of which were in Portugal.

According to annual data collected by the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), four European Union countries have also already surpassed their annual record since observations began in 2006. | BGNES