Forest fires in Turkey, Greece, California: permanent state of emergency

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Firefighting in Lassen National Forest in northeastern California: Fighting the Dixi fire

Photo: Noah Berger / dpa

Forest fires in California: "Flee for your life" (Tagesschau.de, August 6, 2021)

Forest fires out of control: explosions north of Athens - fires are approaching residential areas (DER SPIEGEL, August 6, 2021)

Turkey: More villages evacuated due to forest fires (Zeit.de, August 1, 2021)

While in Germany in July heavy rain and floods devastated entire villages in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, destroying human lives and houses, the next extreme weather catastrophes were already looming elsewhere. The consequences are now being felt and are making headlines around the world. Violent fires are raging in Southeastern Europe, Greece and Turkey, as well as in the west of the USA and are becoming a danger for entire regions.

In

Greece

, the situation is currently worsening, particularly near Athens. Strong westerly winds fueled numerous fires on Friday night, several villages in the north of Athens have already been evacuated and detonations occurred. The fire brigade reported that there were around 90 new forest fires nationwide in Greece within 24 hours. Several people came to hospitals with respiratory problems.

The neighboring state of

Turkey is

fighting the worst forest fires in years for the tenth day in a row on Friday. The southern and western Turkish coastal regions of Antalya, Marmaris, Bodrum and Milas are particularly affected. In Milas, the flames engulfed several neighborhoods that had previously been evacuated. At least eight people have already died in Turkey in connection with the fires. Criticism of the government is growing.

Numerous fires are also raging in the USA.

In

Northern California

, the Dixi fire has kept people in suspense for weeks.

It destroyed the center of the historic town of Greenville on Thursday night.

In total, the fire has burned an area of ​​approximately 1,400 square kilometers so far.

This corresponds to a good half the area of ​​the Saarland and about twice the area of ​​Hamburg.

So far there have been no deaths here.

Much precipitation in Central Europe, drought in the southeast

The very different summers with floods in Central Europe and fires in the southeast can be explained by very different and extreme weather conditions. "In July 2021, there was a rather great contrast in Europe between wet and dry conditions across the continent," is how the European Copernicus Earth observation program sums up the situation.

In western parts of Central Europe, precipitation fell well above average. This led to the devastating floods in parts of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In the eastern part of the continent, however, predominantly dry conditions prevailed, the data show. This offered "favorable environmental conditions for extensive forest fires." In addition, at the end of the month there was a particularly strong heat wave in southeastern Europe - where Greece and Turkey are also located.

Warm weather does not automatically lead to forest fires as long as it is humid at the same time.

In the absence of precipitation, however, high temperatures encourage moisture stored in the soil to evaporate.

The soil dries out more easily.

On dry soils and in dry vegetation, lightning, a carelessly thrown away cigarette or any other kind of spark is enough to set entire areas on fire in a short time.

Extreme drought in the western United States

Such conditions are currently also providing food for the fires in the United States. "For the second year in a row, the drought has parched large parts of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast," wrote the US space agency NASA in early June. At that time, experts warned of extreme drought in the west of the country and the associated severe fires. Unfortunately, they were right.

The fire season in the western United States started very early this year. "The drought and the occasional high heat have favored the development and spread of large forest fires," write the American weather and ocean authority NOAA and the environmental authority (NCEI) in a report on August 5th. In the West region there have been almost 17,000 major fires so far in 2021, which burned more than 10,100 square kilometers of land. This corresponds to about four times the area of ​​the Saarland.

The region includes the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Around 99 percent of the land area and more than 60 million people there are currently affected by some form of drought. On 64 percent of the area there is even extreme or exceptionally severe drought - the two highest levels of the classification.

In the south of the West region, for example in Arizona and New Mexico, there were sometimes heavy rains last month, which counteracted the drought somewhat. However, due to the long drought, the soils often still lack water there. Elsewhere, the situation is worsening. "In the northern and western parts of the West region, the drought and its effects are worsening due to repeated intense heat," the authorities write. In addition to California, the east of Washington, central Oregon, Nevada and Utah are particularly hard hit by drought.

A possible connection with climate change is discussed again and again in connection with extreme weather conditions.

In fact, it is not so easy to determine whether individual weather events would not have taken place without significant climatic changes.

However, it has long been forecast that extreme weather conditions such as heat, drought or heavy rain will increase overall due to a higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

The World Weather Attribution project, which specifically researches the connection between individual weather phenomena and climate change, came to the conclusion at the beginning of July that the extreme heat in western North America would have been practically impossible without man-made climate change.

With material from dpa