In 2023, Canada's worst-ever fire season, 42.9 million acres of land were scorched, an extraordinary scale of damage that focused international attention on the growing threat of wildfires boosted by human-induced climate change.
Canada has counted some 3,000 wildfires in 2025, with 561 burning as of Friday, according to official figures.
"This is one of the highest cumulative areas burned for this time of year, behind the record setting fire season of 2023," an official with Canada's natural resources ministry, Michael Norton, told reporters.
But, he added: "unlike 2023, when fire activity didn't level off, what we're seeing this year is a more normal pattern of burning."
According to figures dating back to 1983, Canada's second most destructive fire season was 1995, when 17.5 million acres burned, a mark that may be passed this year.
Elevated temperatures and dry conditions led to a difficult spring this year, particularly in the central provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
While the intensity of fire activity diminished in June, officials warned the coming two months tend to be the most active nationally, with conditions favorable for burning expected in several areas, including the western province of British Columbia.
Indigenous Canadians have been disproportionately impacted, with 39,000 First Nation residents displaced so far this year.
In recent years, Canada has experienced warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe.
Linked to climate change, rising temperatures lead to reduced snow, shorter and milder winters, and earlier summer conditions that are conducive to fires, experts say.
Spain taming fire that belched smoke cloud over Madrid
Madrid (AFP) July 18, 2025 -
Spanish firefighters on Friday were bringing under control a forest fire near Madrid that had cloaked the capital in a huge cloud of acrid smoke.
The blaze that broke out on Thursday around 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of the city had burned 3,100 hectares (7,660 acres), the Madrid region's leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso wrote on X.
More than 100 firefighters and the Spanish army's emergencies unit were deployed on the ground and in the air to extinguish the flames.
"The fire is now contained," Madrid's emergency services agency said, warning that the wind forecast for Friday "could make the work difficult".
Madrid's civil protection authority advised people to stay indoors on Thursday as the gigantic cloud of orange and grey smoke hung over the city, recommending masks to avoid inhaling ash.
Normality was returning on Friday in the municipalities closest to the fire, with a major motorway reopened and clear skies in Madrid.
Although the cause of the fire is unknown, Spain is experiencing hotter summers stoked by human-induced climate change, which increases the length, frequency and intensity of wildfires.
More than 25,000 hectares have burned so far this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
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