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Europe must adapt to live with megafires
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In July, a wildfire threatened a European capital city — Madrid. More than 100,000 people were evacuated and some 200,000 hectares have burnt across Spain — five times the size of the average area burnt by July in the period 2006–25 (see Nature 656, 277–278; 2026). France experienced unprecedented fires, too, with roughly 42,000 hectares burnt and 250,000 people evacuated in the Gironde region. This follows 2025, Europe’s most-destructive wildfire year on record.
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