How dangerous has the heat been?
The full death tolls linked to heat may take months to calculate because investigations must be conducted for each death, but death statistics compared with historical averages point to a significant rise.
Britain: In late May, about 550 people were estimated to have died from heat-related causes, the country’s weather agency, the Met Office, said on Monday. In June, that spiked to about 2200 in England and Wales.
The daytime maximum temperatures across England and Wales are now roughly 3 to 4 degrees Celsius hotter than they would have been without human-induced climate change, the Met Office said: “Both events were record-breaking due to the impacts of climate change.”
France: French health authorities estimated about 1000 excess deaths over a few days in late June, as temperatures rose to their highest recorded levels. In just one region, on just one day in late June, 220 people went to the emergency room for heat-related reasons, French health authorities said in a report on Friday.
Germany: The June heat wave led to about 5100 heat-related deaths, health authorities estimated on Thursday, noting that “temperatures of this intensity have not previously occurred in Germany”. Weather agencies had predicted temperatures of up to 41C in parts of Germany in June.
Wildfires at record levels
Dry conditions are contributing to the spread of wildfires.
About 2.5 million acres burned in Europe last year, which was the worst year on record. That figure was nearly double the annual average from 2006 to 2024. This year, the figures for fires and burned areas in 2026 are already above average, with blazes in France, Portugal and Spain this month.
France: A wildfire broke out on Sunday in the Fontainebleau forest southeast of Paris. Farmers helped supply firefighters with water, local authorities said on social media. Hundreds of firefighters are battling the blaze, which burned almost 2000 acres overnight, the national fire service said on Monday.
“The intense heat and dry soil have created an exceptional risk of forest fires,” Météo-France, the national weather service, said. Last week, a separate wildfire scorched at least 11,000 acres and forced more than 10,000 people to evacuate.
Wales: Several wildfires and grass fires burned on Monday in North Wales, fire and rescue services said on social media, and residents were evacuated. On Monday, firefighters were working to quell a fire that had started on Sunday at Conwy Mountain, on the coast.
Spain: A wildfire on Saturday killed at least 12 people in the southern part of the country, officials said, most of whom were foreigners. More than 20 others were missing and more than 1400 had to flee their homes.
The fire sped across parched vegetation, at times at a rate of 328 feet (100 metres) per minute, said Félix Bolaños, Spain’s deputy prime minister.
Europe is heating up fast
While the degree to which a single heat event is influenced by climate change requires specific attribution studies, scientists are certain that heat waves around the world are generally becoming hotter, more frequent and longer-lasting, and Europe has been warming faster than any other continent.
In 2025, almost the entire continent was hotter than normal. Researchers estimate that in recent years, Europe has seen tens of thousands of heat-related deaths annually.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Amelia Nierenberg
©2026 THE NEW YORK TIMES
