Europe Is Burning: Why Korea Should Pay Attention to Wildfires and Heatwaves Worldwide 

By Yuseong Hong, Violet Cho, Minju Kim

Although July 2025 was the scalding climax of summer, it is now somewhat cooler. 

Thankfully, HAFS students have not been subject to serious climate disasters this year, so far, and most are content under the conditioned air. Lest readers presume that other countries are in similar situations, we, reporters of HAFS Herald, want to present what Europe has been going through this summer. 

Fires sweep across the lands, leaving them barren and lifeless. Heat scorches the air for days, making breathing a battle against the humid, stifling heat. Wildfires and heatwaves—they’re not the swift annual inconveniences that we used to know. They’re not just predictions but the new phase of global warming and climate change. The process of evaporation is accelerated by rising global temperatures, parching the land, drying vegetation, and providing perfect feed for the flames.

Rising global temperatures accelerate the evaporation of water, parching the land, drying vegetation, and providing perfect feed for the flames. Hotter and drier climates enable fires to start more easily, burn longer, and spread further. Simultaneously, greenhouse gases blanket the atmosphere, pushing up temperatures regardless of day and night. And these disasters threaten ecosystems, infrastructure, and public health. Experts unanimously agree that gradual cuts will not become a plausible solution. Extreme heat disasters are unstoppable without steep and rapid cuts in carbon emissions.

 From Canada’s boreal forests to Australia’s eucalyptus groves, from California’s heavenly hills to the rocky Mediterranean coast, fires and heat now cross borders with ease. Wildfires, once rare and distant threats, have become relentless forces that disrupt lives regularly. 

Wildfires, nowadays, are relentless forces that disrupt lives regularly. These infernos sweep through landscapes, chasing people and animals from their homes, reducing years—even decades—of labor and love to ash in mere seconds. The toll runs into billions of dollars, but the deeper wounds are invisible: vanished landscapes, lost memories, and the shattering of communities and lives. And heat waves are increasingly lethal as the Earth heats up. It is the elderly, the children, the outdoor workers, and those without access to cooling who bear the brunt of this rising threat. 

Past summers in Europe were tolerable, but the heat now arrives with unforgiving force, leaving unprepared communities scourged. This is no longer a distant possibility but a daily reality—one that needs urgent attention. The following is what has happened in Europe.

According to Al Jazeera, the average temperature in Western Europe during June was a record-high 20.49°C. This temperature was 4 degrees higher than that of the 1980s. But more importantly, according to Euronews, it led to the deaths of more than 2.3k people from 12 cities.

 And Europe is suffering from major wildfires and heatwaves. As noted by UN and Euronews articles, Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Finland each had heatwaves above 30°C for 13 and 22 days, respectively. The situation in South and West Europe is much worse. Articles from The Brussels Times and Euronews state that a part of Türkiye surpassed the record high temperature by reaching 50.5°C, and some other nations experienced maximum temperatures higher than 46°C. 

Arid and hot regions such as Southern Europe took extensive damage caused by wildfires. According to Al Jazeera and The Star, flames that have burned more than 430,000 hectares (4,300 km²) in the EU—more than 157,000 hectares (1,570 km²) in Spain and 70,000 hectares (700 km²) in Portugal—still threaten the residents and infrastructure. Why are European countries sustaining massive damage from this ‘inferno’?

On June 22, 2025, five simultaneous wildfires in Greece rapidly spread and destroyed around 40,000 hectares (400 km²). Authorities attributed this to extreme heat, strong winds, and prolonged drought conditions linked to climate change.

Nearby residents had to escape, and hundreds of firefighters, supported with firefighting aircraft, struggled to extinguish the fires. The island lacked firebreaks, observation posts, and water storage. Moreover, the island's terrain and limited roads delayed the fire trucks and equipment, making early response harder.

Similarly, on July 12, 2022, wildfires that burned around 30,000 hectares (300 km²) ignited across Portugal’s Algarve. Although firefighters and emergency teams battled the flames, the strong heat and winds and limited access to the scene slowed down containment of the flames.

The common problems in both cases were insufficient infrastructure and detrimental obstacles. Parts of the land prone to wildfires were unable to effectively address and prevent wildfires, and hindrances aggravated the situation.

Recent studies and experts say that heatwaves and wildfires in Europe are expected to become more frequent and even deadlier in the decades to come. The number of high fire danger days is to increase by several dozen days per year throughout Europe, and under most climate scenarios (RCP4.5, RCP8.5), the possibility of disasters exceeding firefighting capacity brings serious concern. Without Europe acting fast, the disasters are only getting worse.

In other continents as well, damages caused by wildfires and heatwaves are growing due to the detrimental cycle of the climate crisis and global warming. According to Copernicus, wildfires in South Korea burned more than 100k hectares (1000 km²), quadrupling carbon emissions. And according to The Weather Network, they devoured more than 7.2 million hectares (72000 km²) in Canada. There were major heatstrokes as well:According to Axios, more than 280 places in America experienced record high temperatures. India and Pakistan, respectively, suffered from heatwaves reaching temperatures higher than 40°C and 49°C, according to ClimaMeter. Globally, many figures regarding wildfires and heatstrokes are increasing, and reversing it does not seem easy.

It is already a fait accompli that the Earth will become hotter in the future. The question is “how to protect everything against such disasters caused by enormous heat.” As seen in the catastrophes in Europe and other countries, the lack of infrastructure to address such aggravate problems caused by wildfires and heatwaves; moreover, it can enable the cycle of global warming to persist and worsen. Sufficient infrastructure and precaution systems are essential in regions subject to wildfires. And there must be solutions to both heatwaves and the cycle of climate change. The Korean government should also acknowledge such facts and actively participate so as to prevent and mitigate these disasters.