Europe's Children Face Double the Extreme Fire Weather of Grandparents, Study Finds

Children born in Europe today will experience nearly twice as much extreme fire weather as their grandparents, according to a study published in Environmental Research Letters. Researchers found that a child born in Europe in 2025 is projected to live through more than three additional years of extreme fire weather compared to someone born in 1950.

The Mediterranean region is expected to see the most substantial increases, with individuals born in 2025 potentially facing up to 2.5 times the exposure to extreme fire weather compared to those born in 1950. This equates to over five additional years of extreme fire weather over a lifetime under a scenario where global warming increases by 2.6°C above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100, a projection consistent with current global climate and energy policies.

To assess these potential outcomes, scientists utilized climate model projections for the Fire Weather Index, a measure of hot, dry, and windy conditions that escalate fire ignition, spread, and suppression difficulty. Extreme fire weather is defined as days where this index exceeds the top 5% of historical daily values for a given country between 1985 and 2014.

“It doesn't mean that there [will be] a wildfire on all of those days, but it does mean that the risk is much higher,” stated Rosa Pietroiusti, lead author of the study and PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Portugal, which has experienced a high proportion of its area burned in recent decades, could see extreme fire weather days more than double by 2100, rising from an average of 14 days per year (1950-1970) to 32 days per year under current climate policies. Each additional degree of global warming by century's end is estimated to add approximately 272 days of extreme fire weather to the lifetime of a Portuguese child born in 2025. For children in Greece, this could mean 473 additional days, and for those in Spain and Italy, 448 days.

Exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to immediate health issues such as eye irritation, wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. Long-term exposure has been linked to the development or worsening of lung and heart diseases, cognitive impairment, memory loss, and an increased risk of death.

The study emphasizes that swift emissions reductions could mitigate this exposure. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century could significantly reduce the hazard. “While younger people will be more exposed than older generations under all pathways, every fraction of a degree of warming counts, and every fraction of a degree of avoided warming can reduce the hazard that we're exposing young people to during their lives,” Pietroiusti added.

However, the world is currently on track to surpass the 1.5°C threshold set by the Paris Agreement within the next few years, according to a United Nations report. Optimistic estimates project peak warming at 1.8°C, with other predictions suggesting higher levels. Europe is experiencing warming at more than double the global average rate.

This past summer saw severe heat waves across Europe, with over 668,000 hectares (over 1.6 million acres) burned by wildfires across the European Union. This included Belgium's worst wildfire in a century and the largest recorded wildfires in France and Spain since data collection began. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a European Heatwave Plan and a future European firefighting fleet in response to these conditions, calling the recent summer "the summer of truth."

"We're really seeing that these conditions are not just climate model projections and simulations and results,” Pietroiusti noted, “but they're really real world conditions and risks.”