Climate change and the current extreme heat are facilitating and accelerating wildfires.
Underestimated CO2 Emissions
France is experiencing this summer with an exceptionally early and intense fire season. Nearly 68,000 hectares have been reduced to ashes by the end of July 2026, impacting many departments—from Gironde to Côtes-d’Armor to Var. With strong winds, high temperatures, and severe drought, these blazes are destroying decades-old trees in a matter of days. In the face of climate change, Meteo-France anticipates a widening fire risk across the entire country by the end of the century. The fire season is expected to extend by one to two months, particularly around the Mediterranean coast.
This resurgence of fires is driving massive carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, already reaching 1.4 million tonnes for the first seven months of 2026. Emissions are often underestimated. Thus, when accounting for the combustion of soil organic matter, peatlands, and lignite, the historic fires of 2022 would have actually released nearly 8 million tonnes of CO2. That’s 2% of France’s annual emissions, far higher than initial estimates.
Destroyed Carbon Sinks
Beyond the immediate emissions caused by the flames, fires disrupt the natural carbon uptake cycle. By destroying vegetation, the 2022 fires have thus cut by 30% the absorption capacity of France’s forests. Adding to this is an immediate thermal effect: the darkening of burned soils and the dispersion of soot carbon in the air increase the absorption of solar energy. This can trigger localized warming, while making the land more vulnerable to erosion and floods.
While nature has resilience mechanisms to rebuild ecosystems after fire, forest rebuilding will be slow and uncertain. If herbaceous areas regrow in one or two years, old forests or peatlands can take centuries to restore their original carbon stocks. This healing process is now seriously threatened by the closely spaced repetition of fires, pest outbreaks, and successive droughts. All these factors, combined with higher logging, have already halved the French forest carbon sink between 2013 and 2021.
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